A Month in Pictures

Every summer, I take on the task of making a yearly book documenting our families’, but primarily my kids’, major photo-worthy moments. It is essentially a photo album with corresponding captions and the occasional memory sleeve to highlight other notable, non-photo keepsakes. The task of creating this book is ominous, and while the final product is worth it, I curse and procrastinate the entire way through.

Earlier this year, I was introduced to an app, ‘Recently,‘ that allows you to select photos directly from your phone to create a monthly “magazine” that is both aesthetically pleasing enough to showcase on your coffee table, and simple enough that you can do it while binge watching “unREAL,” not that I do that or anything.

Part of my issue with making our yearly book is that all the photos are primarily on my phone and it is a huge inconvenience to first upload them all to the computer, organize them and then upload them once again to the photo website. Recently automatically prompts you to make the book each month, auto-populates its database with your 50-100 most recent iPhone pics and then allows you to cut or add alternatives of your choice. While I love the idea of adding 100 pictures every 30 days, since I am a little picture happy, I prefer the full page spreads with the 50 picture option and therefore, opt to make two books on particularly photo-heavy months, rather than squeezing them into one book and shrinking their size.

Also, I enjoy creating a monthly library on our book shelf that I can easily flip through with friends or my kids. While it is nice to have all my photos from the year in one central book, I like the individual archives because they really capture moments in our lives on any particular month. The photos are more candid and honest, instead of carefully curated and painstakingly selected as they are in the yearly photo book. I feel that these magazines are often a more accurate representation of our daily lives.

I also have loved gifting them to grandparents and great-grandparents, who are now also on our monthly subscription. For better or worse, they get to see every snippet of our weekly activities.