5 Simple Ways to Enjoy Your Photos
Are your photos stuck on your phone and not being enjoyed? Or are the stored in your social media platform, not being seen again after your post?
It is estimated that 1.72 trillion photos were taken in 2022 and that number is projected to increase by 10-15% every year. And with 90% of those photos taken on a smart phone, 3.2 billion images are shared on social media every day. But how are we enjoying our photos after the 1-2 days they last on Instagram? I love to have my photos in different ways around my home so that I can relive our favorite memories. My 5 favorite ways to enjoy my photos outside of social media are:
Yearly Personalized Calendar
Travel and Yearbook Photo Albums
Mugs & Ornaments
Digital Frames
Personalized Greeting Cards
Let's dive into the list more!
Yearly Personalized Calendar
I love creating this every December. I take 10-20 of my favorite photos from each month that year and add them to that month in the calendar. So it creates a "time hop" calendar of that year of memories. The family loves to flip through the calendar each month and relive our best moments from the previous year. I use Mixbook to create my calendars, but I've used Wal-Mart photo in the past as well.
2. Travel and Yearbook Photo Albums
I often have way more of my favorite photos that will fit into the annual calendar so creating a travel or yearbook photo album is perfect. These can hold 100-500+ photos of our favorite memories and moments. If we take a big summer trip like our trip to California and Disneyland, I will place those in their own separate album. Online programs make album creation and printing so easy. Picking the photos is usually the hardest part. My current favorite is album stomp and Printque, but I've also used and would recommend Mixbook, Shutterfly, and Chatbook.
3. Mugs & Ornaments
These are my favorite keepsakes to make with my photos because I know they will be used and/or cherished. I love my quiet mornings with my cup of tea or coffee. And it is even better when I reach into the cabinet and grab my St. Lucia trip mug or my new Disney Princess Race mug. Also, every November we get down the ornament boxes and get excited to relive our memories captured in our photo ornaments. I love the one when the kids were little in the Grand Canyon, or Chris screaming and crying the 1st time he met Santa. And I cherish the ones with my grandparents who are all now in heaven and we get to remember them special at Christmas. I've used Walgreens, Shutterfly, Walmart, Snapfish, etc.
4. Digital Frames
OK. I may be a little obsessed. I have 4 of these around my house. They are the perfect way to display all of our digital memories. They hold thousands of our photos. One often catches my attention and I will spend several minutes watching them scroll by. Nix Play is by far my favorite, and I have them for my family that I can send them photos over the cloud service.
5. Personalized Greeting Cards
This is my newest way to surprise my parents on their birthdays or Father's/Mother's Days. I wish I thought of this when my grandparents were still around. The boys' Papa loves to open up his Father's Day card and seeing a great photo of Papa with his grandsons on the card. Then they typically end up on their refrigerator to enjoy longer. You don't typically do that with other greeting cards. I'm sure you can use Shutterfly or other sites, but I like Walgreens. Easy to create and typically can get them done is less than an hour. Which helps, because I always get cards at the last minute.
