your family album

[cdmommie]

If you had to make a family album for your agency, how did you do it?  Is there software online somewhere?

[mommyof1sofar]

We had to send hard copies of our album to any and all potential matches through the agencies. We got color copies of photos of our family members, of us doing things together as a couple/ on vacation, we threw in a wedding picture (it was our one professional pic), we also took pics of the nursery and the house. We were matched and had placement within 6 months of beginning the process- shorter than a pregancy! Our birth mom said she loved our photos because they were not staged and were just us doing fun things together- like swimming with dolphins. She also liked seeing the baby's room was ready and waiting so she got an idea of the life her little girl would have as our daughter. Our agency suggested that candid shots are best to give expectant moms a true sense of what your family is about...I took each photo and cut it out and pasted it on cardboard and added captions- it was sort of like scrap booking for me and I made about 12 albums. I got the color copies done at Office Max- they can do it on photo paper but I opted for just color copies to keep costs down a bit and was told that was quite acceptable as long as the photos are clear. You might also try asking your agency to look at a sample of your album to make suggestions to add to it. Best wishes! :)

[lamamax3]

I used Blurb.com You download the free software and create your book on your own computer, then upload it when it's complete.  We only needed one copy (after years of waiting, we did update things like ages and order another one).  Blurb offers so many options for making the book, including lots of ways to include text.

We started ours with pictures of when we met and got married, then moved on to pictures of our kids, our extended families, vacations, our house, our dogs, our hobbies :)