enJOY it

an archived personal and craft blog from Elise Blaha Cripe.

when we were two / another photo book.

March 6, 2014

Awhile back I shared the Pinhole Press photo book I had made of my maternity shoot and our family photos.

I was SO in love with the book that I decided to make one more that showcased some of the professional photos we were lucky to have taken in the years before Ellerie was born. I played on the "feet" theme of Ellerie's album and used a photo of our sandals from our engagement shoot (in 2009!).

I packed a lot in…our engagement shoot (photos by the Goodness)…

…our wedding (photos by the Goodness)…

and then images from this special shoot (photos by Driver Photo) when we were living by the beach in Oxnard.

Yes, it's true; I already have an engagement album and a wedding album, but I love that this book combines my favorite images of the two of us from all three events (about 18 months apart each) and matches the baby album. It would be rad to add one digital photo book a year as our family grows and changes.

I have used a lot of photo book printers over the years and have no complaints about any brands, but the quality of these Pinhole Press books is just outstanding. I love that they lay flat and I love that one photos can take up a full spread. I even love that I am limited to just 60 pages. It's a nice reminder to EDIT and just pick the photos that best tell the story.

Knowing I would be sharing here and highly recommending this company (again), I emailed Pinhole Press to see if they wanted to offer a discount for my readers and they generously agreed. Use code "lovephotobooks" to save 10% on your photo book order through March 31.

*please note: I was not compensated financially or in product for this post, but links throughout are affiliate which means if you buy through them I receive a small commission.

Posted in e&p, photography

30 responses to “when we were two / another photo book.”

susan

March 6, 2014

gorgeous ! GORGEOUS !!

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Carrie

March 6, 2014

you are just the cutest thing ever. this is so sweet, and i think it fits very well with the ellerie book. can’t wait to see more over the years 😉

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Alessia

March 6, 2014

Have you done a post (or included the info somewhere else) about how you go about affiliate links and things of that nature? You do it all so seemlessly, it would be a great post to read!
xo

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Johanna

March 6, 2014

Your books look absolutely stunning! Too bad Pinhole Press doesn’t ship internationally – sort of a deal-breaker to me here in Germany … although I could have it delivered to family in the US or Canada … I believe the paper is stunning, right? Pinhole Press state that it is Mohawk Superfine in eggshell finish, which is the same paper the Moo luxe cards are printed on (smooth finish – LOVE). Have you seen any books printed by Artifact Uprising? If so, would you mind sharing how you think the quality compares? They use a Mohawk Paper, too (Options) – seems to be the number one choice right now!
Oh man, photo books. They’ve come a long way for sure. Awesome!

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Leah Buckley

March 6, 2014

ok this book is gorgeous, of course, and i love it. but what actually caught my eye in this post is the umbrella prints fabric the books are sitting on, haha! i’m so envious that you have yardage! i adore those heart prints but all i can afford are a few trimmings packs. which of course i’m hoarding and can’t figure out what to do with them. do you have plans for the fabric?

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Johanna

March 6, 2014

Edit – MOO’s luxe cards are actually the same eggshell finish! I am sold.

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Allison

March 6, 2014

In love with the feet theme – good thinkin’!

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Katie

March 6, 2014

What a beautiful quality book! I just checked, and they ship to Canada – woohoo! Do you remember the dimensions that you chose for your album? It looks like a great size.

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alaina [so alaina]

March 6, 2014

i agree – that would be very informative and useful.

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Suzanne

March 6, 2014

I love all the pops of color and the light in so many of your photos! And I can’t wait to try Pinhole Press. Thanks for the discount!

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Pretty Florals

March 6, 2014

That’s beautiful. We’ve just made a photo book of our favourite wedding photos and it’s made me realise that I shouldn’t just make one for big special occasions. I should make more just for life 🙂 Too often my fave snaps are confined to the dusty and dark corners of my hard drive never to be seen again!

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Carrie

March 6, 2014

Love this book! We didn’t have a camera for most of our “when we were two” time, so I don’t have many photos from then, but this is such a great idea! I think it’s important for kids to see what their parents were like before there were kids. It reminds them that we had/have an identity outside of Mom and Dad. 🙂 Ellerie and her future siblings will love you for this! Thank you for sharing!

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Chrissy

March 6, 2014

Beautiful!

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Katelyn

March 6, 2014

I just started last year making one photo book for the entire year. It has been such a good exercise in taking photos, organizing photos and saving only the very best. Plus it’s something that I find myself sitting down with regularly just to relive some of the memories.
If you can ever get to that point, I highly recommend it!

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Anna Scott

March 6, 2014

Elise, I’d love to hear about how you store all your albums and memory books– between project life, these photo books, your mini books, and other albums, you must have so many! Do you have them all displayed on shelves, or are some kept in storage? As someone who is a few stages behind you (just about to move in with my boyfriend for the first time), I am so inspired by your memory keeping tips and techniques.

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elise blaha cripe

March 6, 2014

I have not but this is a great idea! Will add it to my list of future blog posts. thanks. 🙂

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elise blaha cripe

March 6, 2014

I have seen one of the small artifact uprising books (the ones you make on your cell phone) and pinhole press is better paper quality wise. I would be interested in trying out one of their larger books to fairly and more accurately compare. 🙂

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elise blaha cripe

March 6, 2014

yes! … an upcoming make29 project… 🙂

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elise blaha cripe

March 6, 2014

It’s their 60 page panoramic 8.75×8.75 inches. 🙂

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elise blaha cripe

March 6, 2014

So much of my stuff goes unlooked at these days. 🙂 I keep the minibooks and PL albums in my office, but these photobooks and our wedding albums are out in the main room. I think I may be transitioning how I do memory keeping in the next few years…it’s becoming just TOO MUCH. 😉

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Kathy

March 6, 2014

Elise, the book is fabulous…and you know what apart from the photos are amazing, even if they were a point and shoot of the two of you, it’s about getting meaningful photos off the HDD and into something that people/your family can hold and touch. I think that is the key really. My friends and I discuss this all the time, we want to be better photographers, taking better photos, having good quality lenses and then these photos stay buried in our HDD’s. I particularly love the photo books of your apartments and would have loved to have done these from when I first moved out of home. So the key is to have your little theme for the book, pick photos and order your book. It’s a time thing but my WITL book is my favourite album at our house, which reminds me I did need to put the 2013 into a book as the photos were all taken. I love your book, love that you are sharing these ideas and reminding me I need to “JUST DO IT”. I’m assuming it’s an 8×8 inch book (I haven’t gone back to the link from the baby book where you probably spoke about it). Regards Kathy A, Brisbane, Australia (PS loving your Elise Loves Mornings in Instagram too by the way.

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Emily

March 6, 2014

I ordered a photo book of our engagement photos after your first post of the Ellerie book. I love the book for the most part… The quality is outstanding, it’s heavy/substantial, the cloth on the outside is nice, the paper is gorgeous – the texture, etc, but I thought the picture quality was pretty terrible. I can’t tell if your book is the same, but mine turned out almost comic-like… The bokeh, or blur, in the background looks like comic books, all pixelated and weird. I can’t tell if yours looks like that or not. I can’t get close enough. I am not sure if it’s the color profile that my photographer used or if that’s just how Pinhole Press prints. It was a total let down because I love everything else about the book and I would love to get our wedding photos in a matching one, but since I used the same photographer, I am too scared to order another one. The only place I maybe see it in your book is the photo of you and Paul walking back down the aisle after your ceremony – right by your head there is an orange blob. It looks kind of like what I am talking about. I probably should have contacted Pinhole Press after I received it, but I hate talking on the phone and I hate confrontation, so I didn’t bother. And I really don’t know what I just blabbed all that on here. Sorry!!!!! I guess I just really wanted these books to be the ONES.

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Sarah M

March 6, 2014

Great idea! I’m all for different themes of getting photos printed/scrapped into books, even if there is overlap with the content of other books.

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Johanna

March 7, 2014

This sounds so very intriguing. Photo books here in Germany are developing in a positive way, too, but I have yet to come across a company that makes my heart jump like one of these two. Something always feels “wrong” to me – the font used for embossing the otherwise pretty bookcloth cover, the sheen of the paper, the binding. Oh well! So how do the Blurb books fit into this from your point of view? Replaced by Pinhole Press? Or something different alltogether? Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts! (And for tolerating me spamming your comments – in case you’d rather answer via email, I’m all ears!)

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Renee

March 7, 2014

Oh my, I’ve just been sucked down a rabbit hole on the internet, following links back and forth until I finished up on your post about Paul’s homecoming. I’d promises myself I’d read just-one-more blog post after putting my little man to sleep and before I turn in too, and it’s this and I’m crying happy tears for you. It’s so incredibly sweet, and joy-filled. Thank you for writing that so others can share in your love story and your joy. x

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Elise

March 7, 2014

i can’t say for sure, but I plan on using blurb books for smaller albums (like when we move houses and for my garden) and then would like to use pinhole for our larger yearly “family” albums. both are awesome and have different uses. 🙂

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Elise

March 7, 2014

i will continue to use both for sure. Blurb is what I use for our house albums and for garden/instagram photos. pinhole is probably what i will use moving forward with our family albums.

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Welcome Home Taylor

March 7, 2014

This book is gorgeous! I would love to do something like this with some of my favorite recipes that I’ve made.
xoxo
Taylor
http://www.welcomehometaylor.com

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Johanna

March 8, 2014

Thanks, Elise!

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cheyenne

March 12, 2014

love this! it looks amazing 🙂 what a lovely thing to have.
xo, cheyenne

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