As a mother of four and a photographer, I often get the comment “you must have such great photos of your children!” And it’s true. I really believe in beautiful photography and having fine art prints made. But in this post I want to talk about the everyday photos. The truth is that all of us have SO MANY photos. And moms, we have thousands of our children. Let’s completely mute the talk on the quality of the image for a moment. Think of the sheer number of photos on your phone and computer right now… I bet it’s in the 10,000s. But here’s the kicker: when’s the last time anyone sat down and actually looked through all those images? If you feel overwhelmed by that reality, this post is for you!

Why Printing your Phone Photos Matters

I think we all inherently feel the importance of photography. That’s why point and shoot cameras slid into our phones (and our phone prices start at $1,000!) – everyone wants to capture the moment, look back on memories, and have the flexibility to create with their images (whether for personal or professional purposes). We all know in the back of our minds that “these photos deserve to be seen and shared.” We want our families and our children to grow up seeing their worth and value in our eyes.

As a mother, I simply cannot allow myself to professionally photograph other people’s precious moments and neglect my own family’s moments. So, for the longest time, I used a personal instagram account to post and auto-create albums through Chatbooks. I subscribed to Chatbooks so that every 60 images, my captions and images would be transformed to a mini book and shipped to my door. Problem solved. All I had to do was select the favorite images, edit them if I wanted, and boom! Printed!

The Tragic Tale of Printing Procrastination

(Spoiler alert: this is a true “tale of woe” written in a narrative style… feel free to skip the drama and go to end!) You probably heard the key change and scary music start playing in that last paragraph. “All I had to do”…. and yet, there I was, December 2024, driving to my family in Illinois (hubby at the wheel), realizing I had fallen EIGHT MONTHS behind in posting my personal instagram images. Major cringe. As a type A person, this truly felt like a bad mark on my mom report card. So I set my face to post as many as possible. To catch up before 2025 hit.

It went swimmingly – the posting, that was. Took me about five hours. So when I opened up Instagram after coming home for the holidays with all that work under my belt, you can imagine my dismay when I opened up my personal Instagram to messages about my many VIOLATIONS. As in, every image I had posted to return to my grade A mom status and catch up now had to be “reviewed” so that it would be allowed to post. They had all been taken down. *I didn’t cry but I wanted to*

Another hour later….I open my Chatbooks app, happy that finally I can begin to order those books… and the cherry on top of the tragedy read: “due to new Instagram updates, we can no longer automate syncing of Instagram posts to Chatbooks.” I was rock ribbed, though. I was going to persevere and get this done.

The New Way to Chatbooks

So the new way (and now I knew, the only way) to use Chatbooks was to upload directly to my app. Which, it was promised, would result in higher image quality. I love that. I also realized in the course of spending more hours redoing the work I had done that I actually loved not being on Instagram!

The best part about directly uploading to Chatbooks is that the correct date auto-populates! Even if you edit the photo, it doesn’t assume (like Instagram) that the day you use the photo is “the date” of the photo. (I mean, in what sort of fairytale world are we moms going to post everything the day it happens?) This feels so much more easy.

Now, all I have to do is favorite the photos I want to store up for my chapbooks. Or I could choose to create a unique album and keep them there. I love it! I cannot wait to receive the fruits of my labor in the mail. The books from May-August 2024 are finally coming to me! Yay!

Ready to Try Chatbooks?

So have you found a solution for letting your phone photos live? Especially if you are a mom or a grandparent, I highly recommend getting those iPhone photos OUT of the screen prison!

You can use my link for $10! Just click here to begin making books right from your phone!

You can choose whether to make stand alone books or a series. Use a photo as a cover or select an artsy cover. You can make a gift or make it for yourself. All from your phone! I hope my tragic tale has inspired you to do things the easy way, and to keep things simple. I remember my mom stressing out during the heyday of Creative Memories scrapbooking tools – she so quickly became swamped and never recovered her habit of crafting her books. (In fact, this year she finally let go and gave up that entire endeavor.) We don’t need every photo book to be “perfect” or luxury. We need to hold on to those everyday moments. And sure, I highly recommend a lifestyle family session to capture beautiful home moments of your family – but also, I want all of us moms to feel free to make a system that works for us to cherish our everyday. One day we’ll blink, and our kids will be grown!

Printing Photos in 2024 | Printing Your Everyday Moments | Chatbooks Albums