Let me preface this piece by admitting that I am an almost-California-native whose comfort zone sits squarely between 65 and 75 Fahrenheit. That said, I’m going to give you my two cents anyway.

Eugene C., Shutterfly’s Lead User Experience Designer, is an avid photo book maker and fan of capturing life’s small moments. In this article, Eugene takes us through his techniques for putting together a comprehensive year in review photo book. His secret? More is more.

My daughter is getting older and will be heading to high school next year. It’s made me very reflective of the early years and all the things we did and all the changes we went through. So I started creating a year-by-year summary photobook. But, it wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped! I struggled to round up pictures of years when my picture taking wasn’t as prolific and from the traditional photo days, to the years in between that were on photo cds (which now have software compatibility issues) to now. Phew! It was very eye-opening. It really strengthens Shutterfly’s place in my heart as they store our photos for a lifetime–one place to find everything will make building books for my step-granddaughter and future grandchildren so much easier!

The most enjoyable holiday parties I’ve attended are the ones that include my digital camera. If you’re asking yourself why I would drag a camera to a party and then start take pictures, let me give you a few good reasons.

Our world stock market drama inspired me to perform Gallery searches on words like “money”, “savings” and “inexpensive”. The results were plentiful. Gallery members have found fantastically original ways to save money by creating photo books. Here are a few of my favorites.