What shall we give to the babe in the manger?

I always love the last Sunday before Christmas. I love it because the music at church is always extra special that day - we get to sing so many of the Christmas hymns and listen to special musical numbers. And, at least for me, Christmas music brings the feeling of Christmas like nothing else can.

I saw this video yesterday, and loved it. It's a beautiful rendition of "What Shall We Give to the Babe in the Manger?" by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and it's got a great story to watch that goes along with it. It brought happiness into my heart and I hope it does to yours too.

"Easy Canvas Prints" Canvas Review

*Disclosure: I was given a free 8x10 canvas print by Easy Canvas Prints to do this review.

So, I've been thinking about canvas prints for a long time. I've seen them in friends' and family's houses, and I really like them I think they're a really cool way to display family pictures. I haven't ordered any before, though, because they tend to be expensive and there are so many companies to choose from that I haven't been sure where to start.

My sister-in-law Shelley posted about Easy Canvas Prints a while ago. I was also able to talk to Easy Canvas Prints (you can find their website at www.easycanvasprints.com) and get a canvas to review. I was very excited when I ordered it a couple weeks ago; my first canvas! The turnaround time was really great (very fast production time and shipping) and it arrived just a couple days later. Here it is:

Here's a close-up shot of the print quality:

And the sides:

I wish I had some other canvases to compare this to so that I could give you a more thorough review. I do like the canvas, for sure. It's a very cool medium and I like the way the image wraps around the sides. It's a cool display piece and doesn't need any kind of frame to stand out.

It's different from photo paper prints, though, in saturation and shading (especially noticeable around the faces when looking at it from certain angles). And I don't know if that's just how canvas prints are (the way that light reflects upon the ink on the canvas), or if that's how something about this certain company. Again, I wish I was more experienced with canvas prints so I could tell you.

My favorite photo book resource, Photo Book Girl, has started to review canvas prints as well. Here's her canvas reviews page (she hasn't reviewed many yet, but she does list many companies that do canvas prints): Canvas Print Reviews. And here's her canvas print deals page: Canvas Print Deals.

So again, if you'd like to check out Easy Canvas Prints, their website is www.easycanvasprints.com. They also have some affiliate companies that do custom printing, www.buildasign.com and www.alliedshirts.com.

Have you ever made a Canvas Print? What company did you use? Did you like them?

Shutterfly Premium Layflat Photo Book Review

This year I finally finished making our wedding album. It only took three years to put together, haha. :)

One of the reasons it took me so long to make this book is that it took me a long time to decide which photo book company to use. I knew that I wanted layflat pages, and when I first started planning this book there were only a few companies that offered that feature. (This picture is a good explanation of what layflat pages are.)

Two companies that I seriously considered were AdoramaPix and MyPublisher. I ordered different layflat photo book projects from each company to test them out. I decided against AdoramaPix because of the page constraints (you can only order very specific amounts of pages, and 76 pages was the most you could order) and the real photo paper in the books which, while very nice, wasn't as clear and sharp as I wanted. (You can read my whole AdoramaPix review here.)  I decided against MyPublisher because of the gutter in between the layflat pages and because some of the pictures in the album printed unexpectedly dark.

While I was trying to decided which company to use, Shutterfly came out with their Premium Leather photo books with layflat pages. At the same time, they upped the maximum number of pages per photo book from 100 pages to 111 pages. I had used Shutterfly many times before (you can see my big review of Shutterfly here), was very familiar with their software and print quality, and was really excited to see these new options. Once they came out with their layflat pages, it didn't take long before I decided to make my wedding album with them. So I did, and I'm very happy overall with the finished product.

Here are my thoughts on all the different aspects of the book:

Cover
I love the black leather cover with the stitching around the edges. For all of my other photobooks I have hard image covers (which I also love), but for this special album, our wedding album, it's really nice to have a classic, leather cover.

Paper
The paper used in this book is much thicker than in regular Shutterfly albums. It's double-thick; the way the book is constructed is that each page is glued back-to-back with the next page. It looks great, feels great, and has gives the book a gravitas appropriate for a wedding album.

Picture Quality
Great! Very clear and bright. Good as or better than the pictures in a normal Shutterfly book. Like with my regular Shutterfly books, I didn't have to lighten my pictures more than normal before putting them into the book. (Other companies, like MyPublisher, I would have had to make the pictures extra-bright for them to print bright enough in the book.)

Binding
Here's where I ran into problems with this book. I ordered two copies of the book - one for us and one for my parents - and both copies' bindings broke after short-term, gentle use. How the binding is constructed is that the pages are glued back to back to back to back through the whole book, and then to the covers on either end. The pages are not attached to the spine, just to each other. This probably would not be a problem in a smaller book, such as if you stuck to the basic 20-page book. But Shutterfly allows you to go up to 111 pages, and I took advantage of that fact and used the entire 111 pages. And I think that this type of construction simply cannot support the weight of 111 double-thick pages glued back to back to back. In each of the books, the binding broke when pages pulled away from each other where they were glued together. In one book, this happened to pages in the middle of the book; in the other book, it happened where the pages were attached to the cover.

To Shutterfly's credit, customer service was awesome when I contacted them about this problem. They reprinted and shipped, without charge, a new copy of each book. However, I definitely think anyone planning on making a layflat book with Shutterfly should be aware of this potential problem. The more pages you add to the book, the heavier the pages will be all together, and the more likely they'll pull away from each other and you'll run into this sort of problem.

Here are a couple more pictures of the book!

You can see how flat the pages actually lie:

 

And with the layflat pages, you can do cool, uninterrupted two page spreads. I did two in my book, one of our dessert table and one of the big group shot:

Here's right where the middle crease is. No gutter, just straight across:

Here's a picture of the spine. You can see on the bottom right where two pages are peeling apart from each other; that's the weakness I talked about above.

Here's the thickness of the 111-page premium layflat book compared to a regular 111-page book:

And compared to a regular 20-page book:

And, in case you want to see what all the different pages in the book look like and what kind of layouts I used, here's the whole book:

Click here to view this photo book larger

Because of the binding issue, if I were to make another layflat book with Shutterfly, I wouldn't go much higher than the standard 20 pages. A hundred and eleven pages, while an available option, doesn't seem like it's really able to handle the layflat format. It's just too thick and heavy and the binding on the pages pull away from each other. If Shutterfly improves this in the future and somehow makes the binding more sturdy, I might consider making another large layflat book.

But, like I said, I'm very happy overall with the book. I'm just being very careful with the new, unbroken copy that Shutterfly sent me so that its binding remains intact.

And that's what I thought of Shutterfly's premium leather layflat photo book option!

To check out more of my photo book reviews, check out these posts:

Shutterfly Photo Book Review
Shutterfly Calendar Review
York Photo Photo Book Review
MyPublisher Photo Book Review
AdoramaPix Photo Book Review
Collage.com Photo Book Review 
Photo Book Comparisons

Our Christmas Advent Calendar

For the last couple years I've really wanted to do a Christmas advent calendar every time December rolls around. I've seen lots of cute ideas on Pinterest (I especially like this book advent idea), but every year I forget to make one until it's too late. But not this year! This year I actually put one together! Last Sunday I realized it was the first day of December, and if I wanted to make an advent calendar I needed to make one that day. And I decided to go for it and just make a simple one so that we could do one this year.

I wanted our advent calendar focused on Christ, since he is the reason we celebrate Christmas and I really wanted him to be the focus of our home. And I found this awesome advent calendar that this woman put together, that's all about Christ! On the front of each day she has a picture of Christ, and on the back she has a scripture about him and an activity for the day. I used most of her scriptures (I switched a few out for some that I like even more) and a lot of her activities. Some of the activities seemed too old for Toddler, so I repeated a couple of the simple ones like "Read a Christmas Book" and "Sing Christmas Songs".

How I made our advent calendar was I made 25 squares out of scrapbook paper, wrote the scriptures and activities on the back and put a number on the front, and put those all on a corkboard that we have. On the top of the corkboard I put a picture of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus that I had from an old calendar that I kept the pictures from. And voila! Advent calendar. In the future I'll probably do a nicer, more permanent one like the woman in the link did, but this one's working just fine for this year. :)

What We Believe - a Short History of the Church

Sorry I missed last Sunday's "What We Believe"! I was powering through trying to finish the childhood photo album I had been working on. Today I'm back, and I think I'll try to write the next couple this week and schedule them to post beforehand, so that when the baby comes they'll still post on Sunday for the next couple weeks.

Last week (or two weeks ago, I guess), I talked about how we believe Jesus Christ's full and complete gospel has been restored on earth today, after many parts of it were lost and confused after his death and the death of his apostles. He called a prophet in our day, just as he has called prophets for thousands of years. That boy that he called as a prophet to restore his gospel was Joseph Smith. You can read all about how that happened in my last post. 

Today I want to share with you this video, which is the story of Joseph Smith and the restoration and establishment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), told by members of the Church in Ghana, Singapore, Colombia and elsewhere.

I would like to add my testimony to theirs that I know The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God's church. Its gospel is simple and beautiful. I will continue to do my best to share with you what it teaches, and why it brings such happiness and peace to our lives.

What We Believe - Joseph Smith

In the last couple weeks here on the blog I've talked about what we believe about Jesus Christ, God, God's plan for us, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and prophets.

In a nutshell, what I've said so far can be condensed into this: God lives. He is our father, and he loves us. He created a plan where we can become more like him. Jesus Christ is at the center of God's plan; he lived a perfect life and sacrificed himself for us to save us from our mistakes. We can always return to God because of this redemption, no matter what we've done. To spread this message and to reveal his plans to us, God has called prophets throughout history to teach his word.

My post on prophets covers the question: Okay, if God has called prophets throughout history, has he called them today? Why don't we hear about prophets in this modern day? Well, there actually are prophets on the earth today. I talked about them here, in the post on prophets.

So the next question is, when did this line of prophets start? In the bible, we hear about Adam and Abraham and Moses getting called, and then we can read about their successors throughout the Old Testament, and then in the New Testament there's Jesus himself, and then Peter and Paul, and then...who? What happened?

The Loss of Priesthood Authority

The Church of Jesus Christ is built on the foundation of apostles and prophets (Ephesians 2:19–20; 4:11–14). These leaders have divine priesthood authority. Through revelation they direct the affairs of the Church. They maintain doctrinal purity, authorize the administration of ordinances, and call and confer upon others the priesthood authority.

After Jesus died, people persecuted the Apostles and killed many of them. When the Apostles died, the presiding priesthood authority - the authority to lead God's church and speak in his name - was taken from the earth. Consequently, there was no longer authority to confer the Holy Ghost or perform other saving ordinances. Revelation ceased, and doctrine became corrupted.

Without revelation and priesthood authority, people relied on their own wisdom to interpret the scriptures and the principles and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ. False ideas were taught as truth, and a lot of the knowledge of the true character and nature of God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost was lost. The doctrines of faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost became distorted or forgotten. This apostasy eventually led to the emergence of many different churches, each teaching their own docrines.

After centuries of spiritual darkness, truth-seeking men and women protested against current religious practices. They recognized that many of the doctrines and ordinances of the gospel had been changed or lost. They sought for greater spiritual light, and many spoke of the need for a restoration of truth. They did not claim, however, that God had called them to be a prophet. Instead, they tried to reform teachings and practices that they believed had been changed or corrupted. Their efforts led to the organization of many Protestant churches. This Reformation resulted in an increased emphasis on religious freedom, which opened the way for the final Restoration.

A Restoration, not a Reformation, was required. Priesthood authority did not continue in an unbroken line of succession from the Apostle Peter. To reform is to change what already exists; to restore is to bring back something in its original form. Thus, restoration of priesthood authority through divine messengers was the only possible way to overcome the loss of priesthood authority.

The Savior’s Apostles foretold this universal apostasy. They also foretold that the gospel of Jesus Christ and His Church would be restored once more upon the earth.

The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

When the circumstances were right, Heavenly Father once again reached out to His children in love. He called a young man named Joseph Smith as a prophet. Through him the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored to the earth.

Joseph Smith lived in the United States, which was perhaps the only country to enjoy religious freedom at the time. It was at a time of great religious excitement in the eastern United States. His family members were deeply religious and constantly sought for truth. But many ministers claimed to have the true gospel. Joseph desired “to know which of all the sects was right." The Bible taught there was “one Lord, one faith, one baptism." Joseph attended different churches, but he remained confused about which church he should join. He later wrote:

“So great were the confusions and strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person young as I was … to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong. … In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?”

As Joseph sought truth among the different faiths, he turned to the Bible for guidance. He read, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5). Because of this passage, Joseph decided to ask God what he should do. In the spring of 1820 he went to a nearby grove of trees and knelt in prayer. He described his experience:

“I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. … When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!”

In this vision God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to Joseph Smith. The Savior told Joseph not to join any of the churches, for they “were all wrong” and “all their creeds were an abomination.” He stated, “They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof." Even though many good people believed in Christ and tried to understand and teach His gospel, they did not have the fullness of truth or the priesthood authority to baptize and perform other saving ordinances. They had inherited a state of apostasy as each generation was influenced by what the previous one passed on, including changes in the doctrines and in ordinances such as baptism. As God had done with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and other prophets, He called Joseph Smith to be a prophet through whom the fullness of the gospel was restored to the earth.

After the appearance of the Father and the Son, other heavenly messengers, or angels, were sent to Joseph Smith and his associate Oliver Cowdery. John the Baptist appeared and conferred upon Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery the Aaronic Priesthood, which includes the authority to perform the ordinance of baptism. Peter, James, and John (three of Christ’s original Apostles) appeared and conferred the Melchizedek Priesthood upon Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, restoring the same authority given to Christ’s Apostles anciently. With this priesthood authority, Joseph Smith was directed to organize the Church of Jesus Christ again on the earth. Through him, Jesus Christ called twelve Apostles.

The time in which we live is referred to by Bible prophets as the last days, the latter days, or the dispensation of the fullness of times. It is the period of time just before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It is the final dispensation. This is why the Church is named The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A living prophet directs the Church today. This prophet, the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is the authorized successor to Joseph Smith. He and the present Apostles trace their authority to Jesus Christ in an unbroken chain of ordinations through Joseph Smith.

I know this is a long post, but it's an important one, and thanks for reading until the end. I want you to know that I know that this is true - that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to earth today.

Resources you might be interested in:

• Restoration of Jesus Christ's Church, a page explaining about what happened to the church after Jesus died, why a restoration was necessary, and how the church was restored.
• Chat with the Missionaries, where you can live chat with missionaries and ask them any questions you want.

What We Believe - Living Prophets Speak Today

Good morning! I know I've already expounded on it a couple times, so I won't give you the whole explanation again, but today we're listening to living prophets speak!

You can check out General Conference here.

What We Believe - Prophets

So next week is our church's semi-annual General Conference, where everyone gets together (whether in person or through watching on TV or the internet) and we get to listen to all our leaders. And I found this video about it that I wanted to share with you, which works out perfectly because today's the day I wanted to talk to you about prophets!

As we've talked about in previous weeks, God loves each one of us individually and wants us to be happy, and wants us to return to him after this life. To help us do this, God chooses prophets to lead us. A prophet is a faithful, righteous man chosen by God to speak for Him here on earth. Apostles are prophets chosen by God to be special witnesses of Jesus Christ and His divinity.

Prophets:

• Teach about God and are special witnesses of His Son, Jesus Christ.
• Receive revelation, or direction from the Lord.
• Teach the gospel to the world and interpret the word of God.

In order to speak for God, prophets and apostles must have the priesthood, or the authority to speak and act in the name of God to lead His children.

God has called prophets throughout history. In the Bible we read about prophets like Adam, Abraham, Moses, Paul and many others. We believe that God has also called prophets to lead us today. Joseph Smith was the first prophet called in the current dispensation, or generation, of the Church, and there has been a prophet on the earth ever since. The man called to speak for God and lead His church today is named Thomas S. Monson.

Thomas S. Monson

"For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing?" 

- Mormon 9:9, Hebrews 13:8

By asking us to follow the prophets, God is really asking us to stay close to Him, just like when he asks us to pray often and read the scriptures. Listening to the prophets helps us learn or re-learn what we need to do to accept Jesus Christ's Atonement and become worthy of all the blessings God wants to give us.

Thomas S. Monson, the prophet of this generation, and the apostles will be speaking next weekend in General Conference. I invite you to come listen to the prophets that God has called in our day.

Here's a one-minute video about General Conference and the prophets of our day:

What We Believe - the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Hi everyone! Sorry it's already Sunday night, I guess I'm a bit slow this weekend. :) Time for the fourth installment of "What We Believe."

Last week I explained what we believe about God's plan for us. Today I want to expand on following Jesus Christ. How do we do that?

"We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel."

 "We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost."

- from the "Articles of Faith"/what we believe explained in a nutshell

So we believe that the basics of the gospel of Jesus Christ are: 1. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, 2. Repentance, 3. Baptism, and 4. Receiving the Holy Ghost.

So, it begins with faith in Christ. We believe in him, trust him, and depend on him. When we have faith in Christ, we have a firm belief that he is the son of God and the Savior and Redeemer of the world. We accept and apply his atonement and his teachings.

This faith leads us to repent—to stop doing things that are wrong and continue doing things that are right. Our faith in him also makes us want to show our love by keeping his commandments, including baptism. Baptism is a "covenant," which is a two-way promise with God. When we get baptized, we promise to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ, always remember Him, and keep His commandments. As we keep our part of the covenant, God promises a remission of our sins and the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost (which I'll talk about more in a future post).

And it's that simple! The gospel of Jesus Christ = having faith in him and following his commandments. As we do so throughout our lives, we'll become more like him and have peace and happiness in our lives.

I have definitely felt more happiness in my life as I strive to follow Jesus Christ and as I center my life around him. Jesus Christ, and his gospel, make me so happy. :)

Resources you might be interested in:

• Jesus Christ, a page explaining what we believe about Jesus Christ (and goes into more detail about faith, repentance, baptism, and the Holy Ghost)
• Mormon.org, a website filled with answers to frequently asked questions about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Chat with the Missionaries, where you can live chat with Mormon missionaries and ask them any questions you want. 

What We Believe - God's Plan for Us

Happy Sunday again! I'm continuing today with the "What We Believe" series of posts that I started a couple weeks ago. Today I want to talk about another basic thing we believe - what God's plan for us is. With the gospel, we understand who we are and what our purpose is. It gives us perspective and helps us feel peace and hope.

It's easiest to look at this in three parts - where we were before this life, what we're doing in this life, and where we're going after we die.

Where did I come from?

Before we lived here on this earth, we lived with God in heaven. God is the father of our spirits. We are literally his children; that's why we call him "Heavenly Father." God loves us and wants us to enjoy all the blessings that he has; but we couldn't do that if we stayed in heaven and never got a body and never had to choose between right and wrong.

So God created a perfect plan that would enable us to come to earth, gain bodies, gain experience, and return to him. We understood and accepted the plan before we came here.

Under the direction of Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ created the earth as a place for us to live and gain experience. In order to progress and become like God, each of us had to obtain a body and be tested during a time of probation on the earth. While on the earth we are out of God’s physical presence. We do not remember our pre-earth life. We must walk by faith rather than by sight.

Why am I here?

We are here to get physical bodies, gain experience, and to use our agency to make the choices that will help us become like Heavenly Father. In a nutshell, we are here to become more like God.

Jesus Christ is central to this plan - Heavenly Father's plan. God knew that we wouldn't be perfect when we lived here, and we would make mistakes. But "no unclean thing" can dwell in his presence - so how could we return to him? This is where Christ comes in. It was always in God's plan that Jesus would come to the earth and live a perfect life so that he could redeem the rest of us - and he did. Because of Christ's perfect life and sacrifice, if we repent, his atonement pays for our sins and we are clean again. This is what enables us to return to live with Heavenly Father.

Additionally, Christ's resurrection (coming back to life) allowed each of us to also be resurrected - and to live again (in our perfected, physical bodies, never to die again) after we die.

Where am I going after I die?

For a time, before the judgement, we will live in what's called "the spirit world." This will be a place of peace and rest for those who chose to obey God during our mortal life. Those who did not obey God and did not repent will be unhappy. In the spirit world, the gospel is preached to those who did not obey the gospel and those who did not have the opportunity to hear it while on this earth. If they accept the gospel in the spirit world, it will be like as if they had accepted it here.

After a time, our bodies and spirits will be brought back together through the resurrection, and we will stand before God to be judged. We will remember everything we've done - both good and bad. If we've repented, we will receive mercy. Because God rewards us according to our works and desires, and everyone's not just all good or all bad, there are different kingdoms of glory to which me may be assigned after the judgement.

Those who continued in their sins and did not repent in this life will receive their reward in the lowest kingdom, which is called the telestial kingdom. This kingdom is compared to the glory of the stars.

People who do not accept the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ but live honorable lives will receive a place in the terrestrial kingdom. This kingdom is compared to the glory of the moon.

Those who have repented of their sins and received the ordinances of the gospel and kept the associated covenants will be cleansed by the Atonement of Christ. They will receive exaltation in the highest kingdom, also known as the celestial kingdom. They will live in God’s presence, become like Him, and receive a fulness of joy. They will live together for eternity with those of their family who qualify. In the scriptures this kingdom is compared to the glory or brightness of the sun.

*****

And so that's God's plan for us - which, in the scriptures, is called a merciful plan, the plan of salvation, the plan of redemption, and the plan of happiness. God wants us to be happy, and wants us to be able to enjoy all of the blessings that he has.

"For behold, this is my work and my glory - to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."  - Moses 1:39

Resources you might be interested in:

• God's Plan of Salvation, a page explaining God's plan for us
• Mormon.org, a website filled with answers to frequently asked questions about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Chat with the Missionaries, where you can live chat with Mormon missionaries and ask them any questions you want. 

What We Believe - God

Good morning! I hope you're having a wonderful Sunday. Today is the second post in my "What We Believe" series, and I'll be focusing on another fundamental of our faith - we believe in God.

(I'll be quoting a little bit from this page today, because it explains a little more clearly than I can.)

We believe in God. He is real. We believe that he is our Heavenly Father. We are His children. He has a body of flesh and bone that is glorified and perfected. He loves us. He weeps with us when we suffer and rejoices when we do what is right. He wants to communicate with us, and we can communicate with Him through sincere prayer.

Heavenly Father has a plan for us. He has given us this experience on the earth so we can learn and grow. We can show our love for Him through our choices and our obedience to His commandments.

Prayer is how I feel closest to Heavenly Father - I know that he listens to each and every one of our prayers. He knows and cares about us individually. I have felt his love so strongly in my life, and I feel it strongest when I am praying and communicating with him. know that God is real. I know that he knows and loves each of us individually. He wants us to be happy, and to return to him.


There is a simply child's hymn which I think sums it all up well. It's called "I Know My Father Lives." (If you'd like to listen to the music, you can do so here.)

"I know my Father lives and loves me too.

The Spirit whispers this to me and tells me it is true,

and tells me it is true."

"He sent me here to earth, by faith to live his plan.

The Spirit whispers this to me and tells me that I can,

and tells me that I can."

Resources you might be interested in:

• God's Plan of Salvation, a page explaining what God's plan for us is (I'll talk more about this next week)
• Mormon.org, a website filled with answers to frequently asked questions about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Chat with the Missionaries, where you can live chat with Mormon missionaries and ask them any questions you want. 

Shutterfly Photo Book Review

I will never get tired of talking about photo books - I just love them. I could talk about them for hours. I think they are such a great way to get the pictures out of my camera and computer and into a format that my family can enjoy. And, lucky for me, I have a husband with infinite patience who will listen to me talk about them every day, all day long.

I've been making photo books since 2010. I don't remember how I first learned about them, but I do know the first company I really knew the name of was Shutterfly, and they were the place I went to when I wanted to make one. The first photo book I made was an 8x8 book of our honeymoon, for Jason for his birthday. When it came, I think I liked it even more than he did. (Man, I'm like those people that give golf clubs or something to their spouse, when their spouse doesn't golf and they do.)

During the rest of 2010 I made a few more 8x8 books, but in 2011 didn't really do anything with photo books until the end of the year. That's I got bit by the "record my personal history" bug - and I've never recovered. I decided that I wanted to document my entire life in photobooks, and I've been working on that since.

At some point, I researched all the photo book companies (either in 2010 or 2011), and decided to stick with Shutterfly for most of my projects because they seemed like the best fit for me in quality and price. (To see the different reviews I read, check out this post: Photobook Comparisons.) In total, I've made fifteen books with Shutterfly, and I thought it was high time I finally wrote a review on them. So, bear with me for how long this post is - I guess I've got a lot to share after having made so many Shutterfly books!

Shutterfly

Website: www.shutterfly.com
Number of photo books I've made with Shutterfly: 15

Software

For the most part,  the software is fine. It can be buggy, and there are some improvements I'd like to see made, but overall it's not at all bad to work with. You upload your pictures to the Shutterfly site and work on your book online, so you can access it from any computer (which is great). They have a large selection of page layouts, backgrounds, and embellishments. On top of that, you can fully customize each page's layout until everything is just where you want it, in the dimensions that you want it. One thing I wish Shutterfly would implement, though, is being able to save your custom layouts. Some layouts I alter in similar ways over and over again - I'd like to be able to save it so I could just select my customized layout without having to do it all over again. But, overall, the software is just fine.

Paper Quality

Very good. I've always liked Shutterfly's paper; it's nice and thick, and I've never noticed any bleed-through (being able to see the picture on the other side of the page). It's good paper.

Photo Quality

Shutterfly's photo quality is very good. In the earlier books (the ones I made in 2010), the pictures were more grainy, but they seem to have gotten better over time. The pictures are very clear and bright. With other photo companies, I've had problems with the pictures sometimes turning out too dark, but I've never had that problem with Shutterfly. With those companies, I now know I have to brighten images before uploading them to the software. With Shutterfly, I don't have to worry about that. I know it's hard to illustrate printing quality with a picture of a picture, but here's an attempt:

Nice, bright, and clear.

This is the first book I made, printed in 2010. You can tell (or at least my very picky eyes can) that the picture's a bit more grainy. 

Printed earlier this year (2013) - nice and clear.

Binding

Shutterfly's binding is good, but it can look a little bit different on every book you get. Here's the binding on a bunch of the books compared; I'll give you the page number and dimensions.

20-page 8x8 book:

20 page 8x8 book:

111-page 8x11 book:

20-page 8x11  book:

52-page 8x11 book:

20-page 8x8 book:

The binding on the four 8x11s:

And five 8x8s:

I have had a problem with the binding before, but it was successfully resolved by customer service. Last year, I ordered a 20 page 8x8 book. When the book arrived and I was flipping through the pages, I noticed that I could see right down to the glue between two of the middle pages. You shouldn't be able to see that - usually the pages are tight enough that it would take real effort to see down that far. But there it was. The pages seemed very vulnerable along that seem - they laid too flat and seemed like they could come off really easily. Here's a picture I took at the time:

So, I contacted Shutterfly customer service and explained the problem - and they offered to send me a free new copy of the book, with free 2-day shipping! I was very impressed with their customer service, and when the new book came it had no problems with the binding. So my take-away message with the binding is this: in general, it's very good. And on the occasions that, for some reason, it isn't good, customer service will replace your book with no hassle.

Cover

The cover quality at Shutterfly is very good. I always go for the regular hardcover. They have a couple different options - softcover, matte, padded, cloth, leather - that I haven't tried and I'm not likely to. I have done the premium leather cover for my layflat wedding album, but that's something I'm reviewing next month and I'll talk about it then.

Here are the covers of my 8x11s:

I do wish Shutterfly offered more cover layouts in their software. You can customize the layouts - add more pictures, move things around, etc - and while I don't mind doing that with the inside page layouts, I'd like to have some more ready-made cover options for the covers available. For some reason, they don't offer the "Get more layouts" option in the software for the cover like they do for the inside pages. You either have to choose from one of their smallish selection of cover layouts, or go into customization. I don't know why they just don't offer the same, full selection of layouts for the cover that they do for the inside pages.

Here are the spines:

And the backs:

And the 8x8s:

Book Sizes

Shutterfly offers a lot of sizes of photo books. They recently added a couple more, and now have (height x width) 5x7, 7x9, 8x8, 8x11, 10x10, 12x12, and 11x14 photo books.  I've always made 8x8 or 8x11 books. When I first started making photo books, I always made the 8x8 size because they're cheaper and Shutterfly often has "free 8x8 book" promotions. But before I made my Girls' Camp book, I did some calculations and realized that 8x11 books (which are actually 8.75x11) had 96.25 square inches of space per page vs. 64 inches per page in the 8x8 books - and that's a big difference! For a 20-page book, you get 645 more square inches to put pictures on. And ever since I made and received my first 8x11 book, I definitely prefer that size. I still make 8x8 books sometimes - they're great gifts, and they're a good size for a "single event" (one birthday, or photoshoot, or vacation) type of book. But for the types of books I usually make (year reviews and the like), 8x11s work better.

Here's an 8x8 book compared to an 8x11 (really 8.75x11) book:

Page Layouts

Shutterfly offers a very large selection of page layouts, and full customization on top of that. I use the customization feature pretty often, to nudge pictures and text around or to change dimensions and sizes of pictures.

Here are all of the page layouts in some of my 8x11 books, and the layouts of some of my 8x8 books. You can flip through the pages by clicking the buttons. (For mobile users - I don't think the embedded widget will work for you guys. I'll post a couple regular pictures of layouts after these widget things.)

My "Girls' Camp" photo book, the first 8x11 I ever made:

                                        Click here to view this photo book larger

Below is the book that covers my junior year at BYU, the year Jason and I were engaged. I went more "digital scrapbooking" with this book, creating my own layouts in Photoshop, using my own backgrounds, and then uploading them to Shutterfly. I like how the book turned out, but I'm still more of a just-do-it-all-on-the-website type of person:

                                       Click here to view this photo book larger

And here's my "Freshman and Sophomore Years at BYU" book. I think this one might be my very favorite of all:

                                 Click here to view this photo book larger

Some 8x8 layouts:

                                        Click here to view this photo book larger

                                   Click here to view this photo book larger

For the mobile users: Here are a couple 8x11 layouts -

And a couple 8x8 layouts:

Page Count

Shutterfly books start at 20 pages and can go up to 111 pages. Additional pages have an additional price per page (which is different based on the dimensions of the book you're making). When books go on sale, extra pages go on sale too.

Here's the thickness of a 20-page 8x11 book compared to a 111-page 8x11 book:

Price

Shutterfly is very reasonably priced, if you buy order your books during their sales and use special offer codes. I've gotten really, really good deals by stacking special offer codes and sale prices.

Things I've learned over the course of making so many Shutterfly photobooks:

• I personally prefer the 8x11 size. I can fit more pictures on each page and I like the layouts better. I like the size in my hands and on my shelf.
• In general, I prefer more pictures on a page vs. less. It's just how I like to tell the story. I made my first couple books intuitively like this, but then after reading a lot of reviews on the website Photobookgirl and her saying that she recommends not putting more than 6 pictures per page, I began to question my methods. "Maybe I should be putting less," I thought. "That way each picture will get more attention." So that's what I did with the "First Half of 2011" book that I made this year - I spaced out the pictures a lot more and put less on each page. And you know what? When I finished, ordered, and received that photobook, I liked those layouts the least of all. That's just not my style. I've learned just to trust my instincts about what I think looks good. And that's what you should do, too - trust what you like.
• Feel free to use as many pages as you need to tell the story. When I first started making photo books, I felt very constrained about making sure I didn't go over the first 20 pages, because I didn't want to pay for each additional page. But you know what? The extra pages are worth it. And they're usually on sale, and don't cost that much anyway. Just this week, by stacking several deals, I got an 82-page 8x11 book for $18.77, including shipping. Just do it. Just use as many pages as you want. It's worth it.
• To get the best prices: Always, always, always wait for a sale. Sign your email up with Shutterfly so that you get their coupons and special codes in your email. Search online for promo codes before you order anything. Like them on Facebook so you see the deals they post to their Facebook page. When I buy Shutterfly books, it's almost always with at least one special offer code AND during a sale, so that the offers stack on top of each other.

Whew! That was one long review. If you have any questions about Shutterfly or my experience with them, feel free to ask! Happy photo book making!

To check out more of my photo book reviews, check out these posts:

Shutterfly Premium Leather Layflat Photo Book Review
Shutterfly Calendar Review
York Photo Photo Book Review
MyPublisher Photo Book Review
AdoramaPix Photo Book Review
Collage.com Photo Book Review
Photo Book Comparisons