This month marks the anniversary of our children’s choir, so the parents decided to come together and do something for the priest who directs the choir and the assistants who help him. We had a brief brainstorming session and my friend Jen recommended buying everyone holy medals of Saint Dominic Savio, the patron saint of choir boys and troubled youth…and children and the wrongly accused. (Saints are like moms–they wear many hats.)
Then, someone suggested that, in addition to the medals, we give the priest a nicer, more expensive second gift, like an album with choir-related pictures of the kids over the past year. We all agreed this was a fantastic idea, since odds were he already owned a crucifix or 30.
I wonder how often priests receive crucifixes from well meaning parishioners. I’ll bet there is a Monica’s closet in every rectory stuffed to creaking hinges with crucifixes and rosaries. Like, you can’t even open the closet without an avalanche threat. I’m pretty sure crucifixes and rosaries are to priests what address books and coffee cups are to the rest of us. This is why the album was such a great idea. It’s personal, sentimental, and unique. Also, I could do everything online using Shutterfly. We adjourned the meeting and I told everyone to expect to hear from me soon.
In my first email, I asked the parents for a few pictures of the children during the year at choir.
A seemingly benign request, but it was like I dropped a Geronimo balloon full of water in the middle of a clowder of cats. Everyone ran for safety and I was left standing there, blinking. Albums take work, especially when you are relying on dozens of families to send you a couple of pictures. It didn’t seem like a huge task when I blithely took on the project, but many of the parents in choir didn’t take pictures (we’re not supposed to during mass, so no judgment) or if they did, used their cell phones.
In my second email, I asked the parents to send me whatever choir pictures they had, and that I would work with whatever I got. I was having similar problems. I could swear I had hundreds of pictures, but I didn’t. Lots of video, not a lot of pictures.
Some people sent okay cell phone pictures, but okay cell phone pictures don’t always have the resolution for a large format album. To solve that problem, I converted some of the pictures to black and white or sepia, gave the others an artistic interpretation, and grouped several pictures on one page. I did that with a few of my own iphone pictures.
Some people sent images I can only assume were taken underwater, in the dark, during an earthquake. I would get all excited when an email would come in, open the attachment, and stare. Really? Really? I can’t even. I wanted to reply with a thank you, but I can do is edit and organize pictures, not feed the multitude.
A few people sent me pictures taken with actual cameras on solid ground, and those three people were manna from heaven.
To recap, we have people without pictures, people with a large amount of cell phone pictures, or people with pictures taken underwater, in the dark, during an earthquake. And I, the avowed non-scrapbooker, volunteered to lead these people into the promised land, knowing there were at least two hardcore scrapbookers in the group. It’s like I stopped Moses at the gates of Egypt with a hand on the chest and said, “Dude, I’ve got this.”
I really hoped this would be what tipped the scales and made me a scrapbooker.
I cursed like a sailor and listened to LMFAO on repeat (link NSFW) while I researched catchy bible verses and tried to stretch the pictures I had to fit the album. In creative writing classes they call that “tension.” In real life they call that “you are an idiot and deserve the next 12 hours of misery.”
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wig… #$%&!!!
In my third email, I asked the parents to send me anything and everything they had. School pictures? Mugshots? Whatever. Want.
I stayed up past midnight on Monday working on it because, of course, I put it off until the last possible minute in hopes people would send me pictures.
In my fourth email, I asked the parents to send me the pictures of their freaking kids so I can put this album together for the damn priest!
Paraphrasing, but still. I must have managed to communicate “shrill” and “hysteria” in my email because pictures hit my inbox. Not many, but the people who did send pictures were lifesavers. Many of them were taken with actual cameras on solid ground and a few were even professional shots.
I don’t want to say Shutterfly isn’t a pleasant experience, because I’m sure it is for people who don’t obsess over placement and fonts and page colors and whether this picture “goes” with that one. But, since I do, putting together the album was like opening a Pandora’s box of all my worst faults and idiosyncrasies. It took me about 13 hours over two days (with help from my friend Jennifer towards the end) to put together an album I’m worried won’t be good enough.
Now, keep in mind, I know it will most likely be more than good enough. Wonderful, even. But, this is how I am with crafty projects. It’s hard for me to go with the flow and accept it won’t look perfect. “This is fun!” I thought Monday night as I arranged a page to my satisfaction. Then my mouse stopped working and I almost crushed it with my bare hand.
Nope. Still not a scrapbooker.
This cracked me up as I have been involved in some scrapbooking projects and know how time consuming they are. Great work – I’m sure the finished product will be beautiful and appreciated. “Dude, I’ve got this” – hilarious!
I swear, that’s how they must have looked at me. I, a non-scrapbooker, volunteering to coordinate a photo album involving 30+ families like it was nothing. They must have laughed themselves to sleep! Oh, my arrogance knows no bounds.
This is why I won’t be raising my hand to volunteer to put together anybody’s class gift. I have made a couple of Shutterfly albums for the grandparents, and there are never good pictures of the big events I want to include. I don’t even have grainy cellphone shots, since my phone is not smart and doesn’t have a camera. Congratulations on getting it done anyway! It’s still a much better gift idea than a crucifix. :)
You think you have all these pictures until you go over your files and realize you’re completely screwed. I think that’s how all the parents felt. I know Jen and I agreed that from now on we’re going to bring real cameras, take a few pictures here and there, and put them in a special file in our computers so next year this doesn’t happen. (Because it is a good gift–what else are we going to get him, a crucifix?)
“people with pictures taken underwater, in the dark, during an earthquake.” i can’t stop laughing! you deserve a medal for taking this on and i’m sure the final project is fantastic. i just spent a day formatting an old, ugly block party flyer and my husband was finally – just get it done! i lost three days giving people the head’s up just so i could find a cute bunting banner for the flyer. it’s so much harder when you’re depending on others for stuff…
You are so me.
Oh my gosh I feel your perfectionist pain! Truly. And it does take a long time to do it well–even when you’ve got good shots to work with. I spend hours every Christmas putting together a photo calendar of the kids for my parents. I do it because they love it. And I love the finished product. Doing it? Not so much. And why is it that we never have good shots of the events we really want to capture? (Probably because we’re too busy living it to focus on photographing it–which is a good thing.) Thanks for the smiles this morning.
I’m soooooo praying I love the final product. The images–even the good ones–looked pixelated and blurry to me in the preview. I’m hoping that’s just the software not putting in the pictures at full quality so it doesn’t slow the system down.
My parents would LOVE a book like this. I would love a book like this! To be honest, a few of us are going to buy our own copies if the priest’s look good. I foresee myself doing this for years to come.
I just have to say – LMFAO! :)
I am now! ;)
Stopping Moses at the gates of Egypt with a hand on the chest and saying, �Dude, I�ve got this.�
and
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wig� #$%&!!!
Totally LMFAO!
I’m with you on the battle of perfectionist versus WYSIWYG programs.
Speaking of WYSIWYG, I somehow accidentally found myself in their customize section and it screwed everything up. I seriously thought I was going to lose it. I actually yelled, “Page back! Page back! No!”
We did a photo book one year for D’s mother and it was a truly awful experience ending in a fight and tears. Seriously, you think it’s going to be a great idea (and she loved the final product) but it took forever (hours and hours I will never get back) and was an extremely painful process. I feel for you. At least it’s over!
It’s over, but I’ll probably do it next year because I’m insane and controlling.
Shutterfly is sneaky. I also naively thought I could whip out a photo book in a couple of hours, no problem. 9 hours and one GIANT headache later (and I hardly ever get headaches), I had a measly 20 page book. And some of those were title pages! And some of my picture pages were of single pictures! I’m already dreading making photo books for our parents from our wedding. Blargh.
Anyway- I feel your pain. Anyone who gets through making one of those books deserves a medal. Or at least a grown up beverage : )
In my organizing photos post, several people recommended other sites for photo books. Did I go back to the post and see which site was best? Nope. But, I did remember that Shutterfly was one of the least…pleasurable…to work with. But, I had a coupon and figured, “How bad could it be?”
Hah. Hah-hah.
And that’s the thing! The book is only 20 pages long! And probably 1/3 are title pages, like you said! The problem was that I had such poor quality pictures, there was no way I could use most of the layouts. I had to dump 30 some-odd pictures in two pages of those teeny-picture layouts.
EXACTLY- The “make a free book” coupon. That’s what suckered me in, too.
I’ll go check out the other post to see what people recommended using. Our photographer has been super slow getting our photos back to us, but 3/4 of me doesn’t even care because it means it’s that much longer that I don’t have to deal with making the stupid books.
Dang technology.
Your ability to write with zing and humor gets me every. single. time. This post had me laughing and sympathizing, since earlier this year I thought I’d jump on the “project life” bandwagon. It looked like a form of scrapbooking I could do, and I figured it’d be a fun way to get my creative juices flowing. HAH. The internet has doomed me, because I know: my book just isn’t going to look like what I see online. I’m not an awesome photographer, and despite spreading out my plethora of scrapbooking paraphenalia on my dining room table, I can’t seem to get inspired to even begin. (Project life is supposed to be a page or two per week of the year, completing the book as each week passes. IT’S JUNE AND I HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED PAGE ONE.) I just cut out little scraps of paper before retreating to the freezer for some Ben & Jerry’s. I figure one of these days, real inspiration will strike, and I’ll get going, but… maybe not? I’m wondering if I keep trying to force myself to be a scrapbooker when… I’d rather just read a book. Regardless, I’m sure your book will turn out just fine (probably better than fine; we’re all our worst critics), and when this is all said and done, maybe you’ll finally know: no more scrapbooking. At least not when other people’s terrible photos are involved.
Hah! I was reading your description of Project Life, thinking “Yeah, I can do that!” See what I mean? Total Moses move. It’s like I didn’t just write this entire post about sucking at scrapbooking.
I could totally relate to this post! Loved it, and laughed loudly!
No good deed goes unpunished, right? lol.
For any future projects that include small pics that need to get bigger w/o pixel-izing.. try this trick: In photoshop, increase the image size by 110% until it is the size desired. I don’t know why it works, but it does. Trick #2, just say no.
That sounds about right for the time commitment on creating the book (minus the begging for photos!) Several years ago I spent about 12 hours making a year-end photo book on another site, (not Shutterfly) and THEY LOST IT. They lost the order, and evidently many others, as I spent another couple of hours on the phone waiting on hold for an answer. (Credit back on my card, but those hours of my life were long gone.)
In the end, I slammed together the same pics into a Shutterfly album and everyone got their Christmas gifts. But I’m still bitter!
I can just see you now, setting up a tripod during choir to get some excellent shots for next year’s album! ;-)
And I repeat (again) I love you. Even if I’ve never met you. And I am a scrapbooker. Because I’ve been there.
So I guess this means you don’t want to come to my scrapbook club meeting tomorrow? I’m great at buying scrap book supplies…a little less great at making anything. Still working on my daughter’s scrapbook to give her for high school graduation. In June. 2011.
I could out shop anyone, anytime, anywhere when it comes to supplies. That might be another reason why I’m not a scrapbooker. I don’t need an excuse to buy this I would never use. I have two friends who are hardcore scrapbookers and they use everything they buy. Not me!
That’s why I really liked the idea of these Shutterfly type books for special occasions, vacations, etc. I’m going to see how the book looks. If it comes out great, I might be hooked for projects like First Communion, birthday parties, vacations, etc. One day or one week events that don’t come with a thousand pictures you need to sort through.
I like to think I’m creative (not crafty), but I can’t, for the life of me, scrapbook. In Mormon Utah this is a serious sin. My cousin’s kids have a scrapbook for every year of their lives and my boys have about five pages each. Red-faced birth photo, cute baby picture, kindergarten class photo, two pages of a trip to the zoo (the last was done under pressure at a scrapbooking party. It’s obvious to my cousins that I’m neglecting my children) and that’s it. The rest are on the computer and it doesn’t look like they’ll be printed anytime soon.
Good job on your album.
Crucifixes : priests :: decorative Hobby Lobby crosses : Christian school teachers
Yet??????