Picaboo Yearbooks–a Review

I am a confessed picture hoarder.  I have boxes full of uncategorized random pictures that were taken before the invention of digital photography and computer folders full of random pictures taken since said invention.  Believe me when I say, it hasn’t been for the lack of desire that I have never put these photos into some type of album – it has been a cost issue.  I am an ‘all or nothing’ type when it comes to crafty things.  Because of this, I decided long ago that I couldn’t afford to get into scrapbooking because I would spend every last cent I had on materials.  Recently, however, I was introduced to Picaboo Yearbooks.  As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I have been able to put together the 20-page softcover yearbook for this review, and I am hooked!

     I was a bit nervous when I started to put together my yearbook.  First of all, the title ‘yearbook’ brings to mind the huge colorful albums we used to get each year when I was in school.  I didn’t think I could put together anything that nice.  Secondly, I have six children and didn’t want anyone to feel left out – so I had to find pictures of all of them.  I decided to dive in and just explore the Picaboo Yearbook website and found my nerves calming.  There are plenty of helps available as you go through the process of creating your book, and, once you get started it is really simple.  To make things a little easier on myself, before I uploaded my pictures to Picaboo, I did some rearranging of photo folders on my computer and placed all of the pictures I wanted to use into one folder.  Then, on the Picaboo website, I imported the photos.  I imported about 200 photos – which was more than I needed – but, I wanted to make sure I had plenty.

      Then, the fun began!  My daughter helped me design most of the pages in our book.  She is 13 and had no trouble at all navigating the design.  It is very intuitive.  The program could be used by anyone with enough knowledge of computers to navigate the program.  I think even a 9-10 year old could use it with parental supervision.  Mainly, this was a ‘momma project.’  After all, we moms deserve to have some fun!

    We selected a background for the wrap around cover first and then added a title for our book. Since our pictures were very diverse, we named it “Family Fun.”  Once the cover was done, we chose a background and layout design for our pages.  We used the same background on all of the pages just to keep it simple; but, there are literally thousands of backgrounds from which to choose, so you could have a different one on every page if you wanted to do so.  Once we had the pages set up, the process of dragging in pictures was easy.  Finally, we added some text / captions on the pages to give them some meaning.  When we were through, we ‘locked’ the yearbook and ordered it.  Our free digital copy link came via e-mail within a couple of days of ordering.  Our book took about 2 weeks to arrive.  On the website they guarantee a 3 week turnaround, so I was pleasantly surprised when ours came in 2 weeks. 

     These yearbooks are quality pieces that will become treasured books in any family.  Picaboo offers both hard and soft cover books.  The softcover pricing begins at $8.49, with additional pages available for 22 cents each.  Shipping is currently at $8.99 for this 20 page book. I have looked around at many of the companies that offer this type of picture book, and Picaboo’s are the most reasonably priced I have seen, have the most options available for page design, and are the only ones offering the free digital copy with every order. Kudos, Picaboo!  For this price, I am going to be doing a homeschool yearbook every year!

     Other members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew have also been using and reviewing Picaboo Yearbooks.  To read their reviews, click on the banner below.