Shutterfly has asked me to tell you, my reader, why you should choose them for your photo hosting, printing, card-making and photo-book making. They might give me 50 free cards if I do a good job, but that's not why I'm shilling for them. The truth is, Shutterfly rules.
I am tasked with writing 150 words about their Holiday cards, and you can see from my Flickr that we've ordered them in the past. In 2007, we went with some of their budget cards and I liked them. I think their photo processing is better than most.
In 2009, I ordered those gorgeous flat stationary cards and Wowie Zowie! They feel good in your hand, the colors are gorgeous, I thought the card really represented us as a family and I got to use my favorite pictures. Ho ho ho, indeed!
Looking at the new Shutterfly card preview catalog, I'd say that my preference for this year would be the card at the top of the post - another of those gorgeous flat stationary cards.
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/top-ten-moments-christmas-card-5x7-flat?sortType=1&storeNode=93479
Our list would include all of the milestones of 2010 - our 2nd year of homeschooling, our 1st anniversary of living in Oklahoma, our 10th wedding anniversary (just like that Cleveland Family! haha!), Lucy's first steps, Iggy learning piano, Larry running his first 5k, our first veggie garden, me....uh....getting braces. I think it's a wonderful idea for a card - more concise than a family letter, but it lets us tell the folks back home what we've been up to since moving to OKC.
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards
And now a product endorsement that Shutterfly didn't ask me to write about, but I'd like to share - their Simple Path online software for designing photo books.
http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-books
First, I feel like I am totally qualified to tell you to use Shutterfly because I've been using them since 2003. When Iggy was born and we got a digital camera, we were like all new parents and we went picture crazy. Shutterfly was the easiest upload for our pictures, so we used the site to share pictures with friends and family, and ordered prints without having to wait in line at the drugstore.
Those pictures are still in my account, seven years later, with the same pixel quality, and I have never once received a notice that they would be deleted unless I did X,Y or Z (can't say the same for another online photo company that starts with an S). We uploaded pictures while living in Hong Kong, when we went back to Houston, and now in Oklahoma. And we're probably about four or five computers from when we started this crazy pictures business. I have photos on Shutterfly that I honestly have no idea where they are stored, hard-drive wise. Yes, you have to buy the pictures from Shutterfly and can't download them again, but honestly.....I'm just not that organized. Shutterfly has become my central location for digital photos. I'll pay 15 cents if I ever need the picture again.
Secondly, I think their products are great. Check out my Flickr and you'll see that I've made a photo book or two for every year of motherhood. I always order prints as well, and those get tossed in a shoe box for future generations to look through. But, we actually look at our photos as a story in a picture book. Iggy has always loved his picture books - they handle better than photo albums (not as heavy, not as long). They tell the story of our lives better. Some years I had the time to really labor over cute captions. Some years the book has no words, but there is a definite narrative in there anyway. The books make it so easy to edit your photos down to the best ones, that ones that really tell the story of your family.
Until Lucy was born, I really did have the time to sit and edit and pick and caption each photo book. I made one (or two) for every year of Iggy's life, and sometimes a special book for a special occasion all on its own. When Lucy was born, I thought "Well, I've really made my bed this time. She's going to want to have as many books as I've made for Iggy! Now, I have four books to make a year!" Lucky me - 2009 (the year Lucy was born) was also the first year of Shutterfly's Simple Path, an automatically generated photobook that looks (somehow) like a person put it together. It takes me literally 10 minutes to make a photo book now. And THAT is why Shutterfly's Simple Path is awesome, why it's a superior product, and why I am extremely glad that I chose Shutterfly to host my pictures 7 years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment