What I’m about to tell you is a true story – and while parts of this tome may ring true with families across the world, there’s a happy ending and a solution to this universal problem. Intrigued? Read on!
It was back in August when I received a delightful (that’s not a word I use lightly in 2017, so trust me when I use it!) email from Ella of Ella’s Books. Sat on Brighton beach, in the summer sun, watching the boys throwing stones out to sea (not at each other for change, which made this moment particularly blissful!), I read Ella’s invitation to have one of her bespoke photo books made using our family photos. Now, let me tell you – as a family blogger with a shed load a kids, I get a lot of offers for photo books, none of which have tickled my pickle in the slightest – they’re glossy, mass printed, badly bound tripe (sorry, I feel strongly about this, can you tell?); but from the moment I clicked through to Ella’s Books site I could see and feel the difference. The attention to detail, the care she pours into every book and the personal touches – really make a huge difference. So, I said “yes” within a matter of minutes.
So, if I said yes in August – why am I only writing about this now? It’s not Ella’s work ethic, let me assure you! This is where the frustration, upset and laptop thumping, maternal rage comes in. Between August and October I trawled through external hardrives, photo disks, memory cards, old laptops, memory sticks, antique mobile phones, social media and an online photo-printing service I used in 2009, in search of treasured family photos – from intimate birth moments to our first family holiday to Greece. Most were gone or non-existent! The photos that had been taken were either on corrupted storage clangers or had been lost in the 10 house moves since 2006. Or, even worse, many of the treasured/comical/memorable moments from Hugo & Bruno’s early years just weren’t captured as camera phones were a bit radical/just crap back in those days.
So, Ella encouraged me, after many teary (possibly over hormonal) evenings spent staring at the digital egg-timer of doom, to gather what I could and she’d work her magic. And magic she certainly did! Ella created a book of memories from our travels as a family of 7, curating them I a beautifully tear jerking way, ready for me to fawn over with grandparents this Christmas and pluck off the shelf in 18 years’ time to cause some catastrophic embarrassment for the boys!
So, thank you Ella for creating our beautiful photo book and reminding me to a) get my bum into gear and move all those precious pics onto cloud storage and b) printed photos hold so much more power than those pixelated squares on our phones and screens.
If you’re thinking of creating your own photo book, either for yourself or as a truly tremendous Christmas gift – please get in touch with Ella! For pre-Christmas delivery pics need to be with Ella by the 4th of December!!
I was kindly gifted our photo book in exchange for this blog post – but the mind-blowing, tear jerking magic that Ells created was real – as are all the opinions and anecdotes!
