I have to admit I’m a fan of the clean, modern lines and minimalist designs of some digiscrapped books I’ve seen in Gallery, but am not a digiscrapper (yet). Then I found AnnAbbott’s “Three to One” book in gallery and was inspired as were several others too to make a similar statement using Shutterfly’s own backgrounds and layouts.

It’s getting to be that time of year – time to plan the annual family photo shoot for cards, gifts and to commemorate the passage of time for your family. There are some great photo books in gallery that feature a family photo shoot to inspire and motivate you.

There have been several recent photo books in gallery that I’d summarize as ‘a life in pictures’. This doesn’t necessarily mean pictures of the person themselves in front of the camera, but pictures a person has taken from behind the back and how a collection represents who they are.

Shutterfly and CK Media have recently released two new scrapbook styled photo books that can support your summer storytelling.

Kerri Bradford designed “Play Hard”, a book to tell the story of a sports season of one player or for the entire team. It can also be used to tell the story of multiple seasons at once as the page headlines and color palette are versatile enough to support a season played on the grass or in the gym or even in the pool. There are a bunch of examples in Gallery that illustrate the book’s versatility.

There’s something about the slowness of summertime that is giving people the time to tell some stories in photo books that cover many years.

SharonC15’s “The Story of You…” is the first I saw. It’s a gift to her 18 year old daughter as she heads off to college. BeckyS549’s “

I’ve seen many year in review photo books in Gallery, but none with just 10 photos. Mplusmequalsl’s “2007 Favorites” is a must see for anyone who wants to tackle this effort.

She tells her family’s year in review story in just 10 photos (not counting the collaged cover) and relies heavily on journaling a caption for each photo that explains the memory and significance of the selected pictures. I was so impressed, I MOLT’d her book for my story of a 4th of July weekend camping trip.