Instagramming

So as you've probably guessed by now, I'm fairly obsessed with the app 'Instagram' (@goldteeth by the way!) And since the release of the app on android platforms it seems like it's exploded everywhere! 

I've been using Instagram for about a year now, and it's probably one of the only app type thing that I'm addicted to. I've made some lovely friends and find it a great way to see what they are all up to, and of course see lots of cute babies and children! Compared to twitter, (which I have a fairly on off relationship with, as I don't really seem to have the time to keep up with everyone, and once you miss a day or two it seems impossible to get back in and up to date) it's easier to dip in and out of, and I don't feel like I'm missing something, as you can always go to someone's profile and have a catch up on missed pictures. You can have conversations with people by leaving comments on their pictures, which other people can join in on too, or just simply make your presence known by liking the picture. I love looking at other people's photographs, not only of their children, but of where they live, what they eat, what they wore and where they've been. I love the idea of documenting your daily life and sharing with like-minded people. And for us it's been an easy, quick and cheap way to take nice photographs of Theo. 

But this is where the problem is, the fact that all these nice photos are just kept on my phone. Granted the quality isn't great, nothing compared to film or even our digital camera, but I still wanted some to be real and tangible. Luckily there are a few companies who have cottoned onto this idea, and made it possible to have your Instagram photos in your hands in lots of different fun ways. So I thought I would share with you some of the companies we have used! 

First of all for our Christmas present last year my sister ordered and gave us these wonderful small books of my photos from Printstagram

We love them, and the size as they are prefect to quickly show people your favourite photographs. They make great gifts, especially for Grandma's to carry round in their bags to whip out and show off their grand kids! The quality is good too, probably because of the small format. 

Next is something we discovered as we ordered some as a Christmas present for my sister who gave us the books (Christmas day was funny as we thought we had given each other the same presents!)

We ordered some Stickygrams which are little square magnets with your photos on them! They are such a good idea, and a great way to brighten up and personalise your kitchen. They come in a sheet of 9 and often have offers and deals on, so it's worth keeping an eye out. Delivery is really quick even though they come from America so once again they are a great gift idea! 

The last thing we have is something we've been meaning to do for a long time. As I've mentioned before the family album is something that is very important to me (I even wrote my dissertation on it!) and it's something that I want to make sure we have for Theo, but like always finding the time (and money) to go through and print out pictures to then put in a photo album seems impossible. We also have rolls of film that we need to print out from our holiday last summer and Theo's birthday, but again still haven't got round to getting them developed. The only start I have made is a started album of Theo from birth until about 3 months, and considering we have a whole years worth of photos on top of that, we are doing a pretty bad job of making an album! 

But I found on Blurb books website that you can make books directly from your Instagram account. Which is so easy! All you have to do is log into your account on their website and select the photos you want. Then you can take time to arrange them how you wish. You can add so many photos too, I think our book is 120 pages with over 300 photos in it. Which is pretty good considering how much that would cost to print out each photo individually! 

So here's a little sneak preview of our book. It was so lovely to go through all of our photos from birth to a year of Theo and see how much he's changed. Also it was fun to make little series of similar photos, such as ones with daddy, eating, making a mess and sleeping! 

So there you go, hopefully I will eventually get round to printing out some proper photos and maybe even frame some (we currently have zero photos of photo on the walls...) But for now these will have to do!