How to make your own coffee table book
So, you go on vacation and your camera is practically a
part of your hand, because, hey, it’s a vacation. You take pictures of people
and places. Relatives and people you’ve never met. Shots of yourself to prove
you were there and shots of rolling landscape empty of everyone but the sheep.
Which is all very well and good when you’re on the trip,
but when you get home you’re stuck with a lot of pictures.
Now you could just stick them in a photo album with
magnetic sheets or posts them to an online site, but if you want to try
something a little more adventurous, read on.
When I was a little girl, my grandmother once showed me one
of her photo albums. The pages were black paper and she had written descriptions
in gold pen next to each item. Here and there, she had sketched a rabbit or a
bird or a tree, peeking out of the side of the pictures. The black and white
people staring out of the pages were real to me because I knew who they were.
The pages were special, because my grandmother had made the effort to make them
special.
 When
I got older and I started to travel, I remembered that album and I wanted to
create albums with something of the same sense of style and place. I wanted to
make more than a warehouse for pictures. I wanted to make something that a
little girl might look at and be amazed.
My photo albums have evolved over time, from albums into
virtual coffee table books.
If you’d like to create something similar to preserve your
memories, here are a few tips.
·
Take lots of pictures. I mean lots. Remember the more pictures you
take, the more likely you are to get that great shot.
·
After you take your photos, do a quick sort. Toss the pictures you
don’t want. Don’t be afraid to delete.
·
For those with a digital camera, get a desktop publisher program.
I use Pagemaker, but really all you need is something basic. You can probably
pick something up for under $20 at your local Office Supply store.
·
If you don’t have a digital camera, I’m afraid you’re in for a lot
of rubber cement.
·
Place you pictures on the page. Don’t be afraid to resize or place
them at an angle. Crop images at an angle. Think outside the 4x5 box. You may be
pleasantly surprised.
·
If you have any clip art or stickers that seems related to your
trip, stick them on the page. I’m fond of cropping images that I’ve seen over
and over and sprinkling over the pages. For example, the England photo album is
littered with sheep. While the Japan Album is filled with stone foxes.
·
Type up the text you want for your album. Trust me. It’ll be more
legible and easier to correct if you notice a spelling error.
·
If you are using digital photos, get some two sided color print
paper (I prefer matt) and print on both sides. If you have a two sided printer,
this may be easy. Personally, I have to feed the pages one by one.
·
For those that have been printing pages, head to your nearest
printers or Kinkos and have them bind your new book.
That’s it,
congratulations. Now you have your own hand made coffee table book.
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