I’ve been a Shutterfly customer for at least the last seven years now. I remember when I used to upload all of my pictures from my camera to my desktop computer and then onto my Shutterfly account. It’s gotten a lot easier over the years with the addition of their mobile app, which recognizes new photos I haven’t uploaded yet upon login, so that I can quickly upload photos right from my phone. Before I had Evelyn, I was in the habit of making my own yearly photo albums with the addition of books for special occasions like long trips, our wedding book, and even our guest book that we had people sign on our wedding day.

Since the arrival of Evelyn, I have started Shutterfly books with the intention of continuing to make yearly family photo albums, but have failed miserably in my attempt to finish. Now that I’m about two years behind, the thought of catching up has been a bit overwhelming to say the least. That’s why when I was asked to try out Shutterfly’s new Make My Book™ Service, I jumped at the chance to see how it worked with the hopes that it could be the solution I need to actually get my yearly photo books completed. 

I was pretty skeptical at first because I tend to want to control my projects and how they end up looking. I also thought, okay, is this a real designer actually making my book, or is it like one of those automated buttons you press to have them place your photos and then you get the final result and people’s heads are chopped off and the pictures are jumbled up from page to page?! You guys! I was pleasantly surprised with how awesome my booked turned out and I put my designer TO WORK by uploading over 600 pictures from my Costa Rica sabbatical.

The steps are so easy to follow on the website and overall it’s a very quick process that saved me a lot of time. An option that stood out to me is that you can choose whether or not you want your photos curated by the designer. If you choose to curate, you can save time by uploading an entire album of photos and the designer will choose the best ones for your book. I chose not to curate, which means that the designer will use all of the photos I uploaded. They did a leave a few photos out that just didn’t fit the pages, and I agreed with their choices. You can see exactly which ones they did not use and can choose to add them back in yourself if you want to. Keep in mind, I sent over 600 photos for them to fit in one book!

After only a few days they sent my completed book back to me to review! I changed my photo book cover to a picture that I just loved and zoomed out on a couple of pictures of me in my swimsuit. Haha! I also added a final page that had our trip schedule on it as a fun memorabilia addition. There is no obligation to buy the book once you review it. But if you choose to buy it, you just pay a one-time design fee of $9.99 on top of the cost of the book itself.

This is an extra ten dollars well spent! I absolutely love my book and so does my family. We had a lot of fun reliving those wonderful memories in Costa Rica. It was especially cute to see Evie pointing things out to us in the pictures. It was definitely a trip of a lifetime! I’m excited to have such a cool memento of that family trip, so that we can go back and relive those moments again and again each time we crack open our Shutterfly photo book!

Now that I’m officially in love with the Make My Book™ Service that Shutterfly offers, I can get caught up on my yearly family photo albums with this quick and easy program that gives beautiful results. You’ll have to try it for yourself! Check it out here and let me know how your books turn out!

View more of my book below!

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