Sam F. is Shutterfly’s Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives, and an avid photo book maker. In this article, Sam tells us about himself, and shares his secrets on how he came up with the perfect idea for his Father in Law’s birthday book.

In “A Book Just for Abby”, Joanna-T does a great job of showing her niece Abby how special she is. First Joanna highlights all the things that Abby loves, like toast and chocolate and her best friend Olivia.

Whether you’re turning 5 or 50, birthdays are an important milestone in your year; and as such, those special day should be all about YOU! I may be biased (okay, I AM biased) but I think a photo book is hands down the best birthday gift a person could get. People want something personal, and they want to be cherished – they may TELL you they don’t care about being celebrated, but they do. Below are some of my favorite “it’s all about you” birthday books.

In her description, ‘BrandyO3′ tells us she created her photo book using the few photos that remained after a tragic event. The time and care BrandyO3 puts into ‘A look back for mom’s birthday’ shines through.

I’m thrilled to see our first obvious MOLT’d photo book in Gallery. MOLT stands for Make One Like This, a button you can click when you’re viewing a book that inspires you. This allows you to save a photo book to your Shutterfly account and preserve the backgrounds and layouts just as in the book you saw.

I love your “big kid” birthday books. They are so thoughtful, loving, and humorous. Like EmilyFSU’s ‘A Drummer Looks at 40’, MeganTFF’s ‘Bernard Burba turns 75 Years Old!’, and JulieH34’s ‘Mom’s 60th’. Now that I’ve seen these creations, I can’t wait to turn 75! Drew, Bernard, and Mom have had such wonderful experiences – all captured in beautiful visual journals.