practicing what i preach

well so exactly one week ago , my girl and i were upstairs in the office going through some old pictures for tripp’s birthday. 

ok.  so can we please pause for a second while i drool over the hotness of my husband?? 

anyway, so here’s the thing you need to know about that…{well besides that my husband is hot.}  i was looking at pictures.  real. live. pictures.

i know.  it’s kind of become my thing lately. like i shared in this post i did over at focusing on life, i blame revolution (the tv show).  but it’s true, i really do believe that it is important to print out our photos.  and for the past several months, i have been pretty diligent about printing my pictures. 

and i have been pretty good about getting them into my project life album. 

keeping it really simple helps.

just a few little embellishments here and there.

so i’ve got my picture taking/photo processing down to a great workflow.  i feel really good about that.  and this ‘pocket style’ of scrapbooking really suits me and makes the process of getting pictures into albums super easy.  which i love.  but here’s where it all breaks down my friends…printing my pictures. 

i thought i would share with you my dilemma in hopes that you might help me.  and please don’t judge me…you know that making things harder than they need to be is my special gift.

so there are basically two options for printing pictures right?  either print at home or print at walgreens (or shutterfly or wherever).  and most sources say that printing at walgreens is more economical. when it comes to standard 4×6 photos anyway.

• http://www.thesimpledollar.com/does-home-photo-printing-really-save-money/
• http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/08/technology/08photo.ready.html?_r=0

yes, i know i’m a goober for looking it up.  what else is new.

and in many ways, printing at walgreens is fairly easy and convenient.  i just export full-sized jpegs from lightroom to a designated folder. then i upload them to walgreens’ website and pick them up the next day. easy peasy. 

right now is where i should probably say, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.’

but sometimes i get a wild hair you know?  i find a little pocket of time or get the urge the scrapbook and i don’t want to wait on walgreens.  and my epson printer is pretty good for photos.  so i’ll just print them at home.  except that it takes forever. and ink is expensive so i only want to print the photos that i actually plan to use. 

hello my name is kelly and i am an overthinker.

so for the page protectors that i like to use, there are a total of 8 horizontal 4×6 slots and 8 vertical 3×4 slots.  some of the vertical slots i like to use the decorative cards and journal cards.  but i almost always have way more pictures than slots.  so before i print i have to sort of plan out my pages.  which is not a big deal.   but when i order from walgreens, i usually print everything then plan after the fact.  printing at home is the exact opposite – plan first, then print.

the other dilemma i have about printing at home is whether to print to individual 4×6 photo papers.  or to print to an 8×10 sheet of photo paper and trim them down myself.

i’m still trying to decide which i like best…printing at home or sending them off to walgreens.  there are pros and cons to each.  but i’m starting to think that it doesn’t really matter all that much.  there’s no one ‘best’ way.  just picking one way and staying consistent is probably the most efficient way to to go.  all that matters though is that we print our photos.  for ourselves.  for our children.  for our grandchildren or the grandchildren we hope to have (someday way in the future i might add). 

so for those of you who do project life i’d love to hear your workflow.  how you go about printing?  do you prefer to send them out or print them at home?  inquiring, overthinking minds would like to know.

love, kelly