Back in the day, I was a prodigious scrapbook keeper, which for me felt like an extension of keeping two successive five-year diaries. I made a scrapbook for each of our travels right up until my daughter Ella was born in 2000 including our road trip down the West Coast in 1999, at which point we switched to digital photography. And yes, even back in the 1990s my husband and I were obsessed with food! It’s wonderful to look through the menus, photos and exhibitions we visited on our travels. I even did a few picture series; my favourite is one where all the members of our family sat on our then new sofa in groups, but that’s another story!
Our 1999 trip down the West Coast (in the background); our food scrapbook (in the foreground)
For many years we posted photos on Ella’s web page, which we updated weekly. Then Facebook came along, and I started to keep all my photos in albums. And slideshows in iPhoto and iMovie, we mustn’t forget those! But still there was nothing physical to look at, no solid evidence of our adventures together.
Then in the summer of 2011, I heard about two new exciting projects. One was Instagram and the other was Blurb books. At the end of my first summer of Instagram, I decided to put these two things together and make a Blurb book of our pictures. Things were pretty basic back then in the world of iPhoneography, but it’s still lovely to see what we got up to and while I didn’t make use of Blurb’s fancy editing tools, I know that I will next time!
Our summer 2013 Artifact Uprising book (in the background); our Blurb instagram book (in the foregound).
For summer 2012, I decided to go one step further and make an album just of our our adventures on film in an Artifact Uprising book. Shipped over to me by FedEx, this was an altogether different book of memories. The layout was easy to edit and the overall book was stunning. It remains on the coffee table and we often find ourselves flicking through the pages especially in the depths of winter.
So what’s up next? Well, I have already begun to plan an Instagram book using Artifact Uprising for summer 2013. I’ve started collecting the images on my vsco grid and can’t wait to flick through the real pages once I’ve finished it. And being more than half way through the year, I’m looking for a way to print out my Diptych 365 at the end of the year too. Does anyone have any suggestions for who I should get to print it? I’d love to hear who you would recommend.
both books look beautiful. i wish i could flip through those pages at your coffee table!
Oh that would be my dream, Debbie! x
i love all these
and will be starting a book or two too
I can’t wait to see them!
I really need to do this! Thanks for the inspiration!
It’s a pleasure, Staci. I look forward to seeing your book. x
Thank you so much Kirstin! We love your blog and are grateful you had a chance to try out our books – know that your kind words do not go unnoticed! thanks much! p.s. love your photos. would love to feature them if you’d be willing to share!
You are so kind. Thank YOU! I would be thrilled and honoured to share my pictures with you. I can’t wait to get that Instagram book started!
Kirstin – thanks for the post so excited about this find! I’ve been wanting to do photo book from my vsco grid too and this is perfect!
Brilliant! Glad to be of help!
It’s fantastic that you are so organized and keep these beautiful books full of memories. I need you to inspire me to do the same!
I’m not really organised, Christy! But I do like to look at pictures of summer, in the winter! You should try an Instagram book. It would be epic. x
Gorgeous, Kirstin! I have not made any books and have hardly printed any of my photos. It’s really terrible. I don’t really know where to start! I know I’d like to try Artifact Uprising, but I have no idea how to begin selecting photos.
Thank you Deirdre. Yes, it can be overwhelming to start a project. I had had “making a photo book” on my to-do list for the previous 6 months at least. And then the project I wanted to print out suddenly became apparent! x
Thanks for the great inspiration and motivitation!
It’s a pleasure, Connie.
thank you for this wonderful inspiration! Maybe I should return to more square format images for these kind of books…
I’d love to know more about the VSCO Grid. I went to the link, but I’m not sure if you have to use their app and what purpose it really has—do you just use it to gather photos for printing?
I have struggled with the change from film to digital…mostly in the archiving aspect…still so unsure the best way to preserve my children’s childhood…my parents have all my baby/childhood photos in beautiful leather-bound photo albums with actual photos–so old school! 😉 I want my children to have those memories, too. Thank you for this post. It’s got me thinking again, positively, about this new age. <3
oh Kirstin thank you soooo much (and i can’t wait to see that book on your coffee table)!!!! i am guilty of letting myself get overwhelmed and, while with my first 365 i made sure to have the photos printed by mpix month by month, i have not even printed one shot yet for this year!!!
i have projects in my head and i think i just need to get them down on paper and make a plan!!! this was the first time i ever heard of Artifact Uprising and i must check them out!!!! xxxooo