Digital Project Life: The Printed Photo book + Tutorial

When I was first getting started with digital Project Life the main question that I had was, "what does the finished book look like?" So many people had posted all their finished pages but not one had posted a finished printed book. Well, that's where I come in today! Earlier in 2012 I finished a digital Project Life book with all my 2005 photos and the Amber Edition core kit.

Here are the steps I took to make a book through Shutterfly:
1. Save all pages to be put in book as 12x12in (or whatever size you prefer) jpeg files
2. Upload all jpeg files to a Shutterfly album
3. Choose what type of photobook you would like (I chose a hardcover 12x12 book)
4. Select a "style" (since you have already made all your pages the style doesn't really matter except for how you want the front of your book to look like)
5. From there Shutterfly will prompt you to choose which photos you want to put in the book, choose the album you just uploaded with all your pages in it, choose the correct pages, then click "add to photo book"

6. After you have added the photos then Shutterfly will take you to the area where you will actually put together your book. Before you out any of your pages in the book you need to change the "layout". Most likely Shutterfly will give you a lot of different choices for the layout (left side of the screen) but none of will be what you want. Since you have already made your pages you just want a layout that lets your project life page fill up the whole page of the book. In order to get that template you need to click on "get more layouts".

7. Once there you need to choose the layout template circled below, which will let your project life page go from edge to edge and fill the whole page in the photo book. Click "add to project".

8. Now you are ready to add this layout to your book. To do this click on the page in the photobook then click on the template you want:

 9. Finally you are able to add your pages. Just click and drag to which side you want them on.

10. For each page you will have to go through step 8 and change the layout. I know this is kind of annoying - I wish Shutterfly had the option for a custom book with all the layouts how we need them.

11. Once your book is exactly how you want it then go through the steps for ordering!

Whew! Now that you have made it through all that, here are some examples of the awesome finished product:

While I am on a roll I thought I could show you my printed Week in Life Album too. It was not made with the Project Life Templates but I still used the same concept (12x12 jpeg finished layouts) to make it: 

You know, when I finished these books earlier this year I was so over them. I thought, "will I ever even want to look at these again?!" But once they came in the mail as a finished product I fell in love all over again! It is so great to be able to hold the whole thing in your hand. It is nice how light they are and easy to look through, I also thought Shutterfly's printing was excellent. Oh, and another great thing about Shutterfly is that they are always having sales on photo books - never pay full price for one!

P.s. I will share my finished 2012 album as soon as I order it and get it in. Also, for 2013 I probably won't be using this method. I will be printing my 12x12 pages and putting them in a binder. This is because I got really jealous of all the people who used inserts last year :) As 2013 goes along I plan to share my binder as it comes together so you can see how that looks as well.

If you have any questions about all this I would be happy to answer them!