September - it's back to work for most of us and the kids are back at school. Holiday memories can soon become a distant memory as the daily grind sets in. Newlyweds too are returning from honeymoons in exotic climes, filled with memories of that trip of a lifetime.
In pre-digital times, the first thing I did when I got back from holiday was to send off my photos to be developed, then spend hours poring over them; in my family, getting together to share the photos was all part of the holiday ritual! Now all I have to show for my last few holidays is an increasingly full hard drive; like many people I have just left them sitting on my laptop. So I have decided to spend some of my time this autumn printing out my favourite photos and making some lovely albums to look back on in the winter months. This gave me the idea of blogging some ideas of how we can help our customers make some really super photo albums worthy of their fabulous memories.
Of course many of our customers are brides and they will have spent ages finding the perfect photographer and selecting the photos for their wedding album. But the honeymoon is just as magical and the memories of this special time in a couple's life deserve to be displayed beautifully. That's why we have designed this luxurious album just for the honeymoon photos.
We were delighted with them when they arrived; covered in the smoothest Italian leather in ivory, or a beautiful tropical aqua, they are silver foiled and filled with 50 pages of thick ivory acid-free card, each with a
luxurious vellum interleave and boxed to set off your photographs
to perfection.
But how do you choose an album? First of all think about how many photos you will want to display and how large you want your prints to be. You will find a range of gorgeous honeymoon albums and general holiday albums on our website, that will take anything from 6x4" to 10x8" prints. The 'Refine Your Search' boxes at the top left of the web page will help you find an album with the correct size page. As a general rule it is best to stick your photos on just one side of the pages, or you may find the album does not close as flat, and may not fit the box properly.
Of course price will always be a consideration. If you are choosing an album for perhaps a wedding gift for the couple, then a leather album will be the premium option; superbly durable and luxurious to feel, leather will keep its finish for years and with this grade of album you can expect the finest quality acid-free card and vellum interleaving to protect the photos indefinitely.
For a holiday or all-purpose album, our leather chunky albums are ideal, as they come in all sorts of colours and have 50 pages which will hold two 6x4" or x1 7x5" photo, interleaved with vellum for added protection. Or, if you want to display 8x10 photos, take a look at our A4 photo albums.
Leather albums don't have to be traditional in style. We stock some lovely handmade photo albums from India, embossed with traditional designs, and filled with Khadda paper recycled from cotton rags, to which are added petals, grass and silk threads. A beautiful yet sustainable option, they are available in a number of sizes, colours and prices.
When filling a photo album, your aim, of course, is to create a book that will bring back all sorts of memories. Photos are brilliant, but why not add other pieces of memorabilia that will recall a special meal, an excursion, a show you saw, the hotel you stayed at. Postcards, tickets, menus, flyers, exotic pressed flowers, maps, banknotes, a label from your favourite local wine - they will all help to really bring the album alive and remind you of stories to tell - the good times and the near disasters!
This smaller album has a lovely leather texture and again, beautiful cotton paper; they double as brilliant sketch books too.
Staying with the Indian recycled style are these gorgeous albums covered in richly coloured fabric recycled from traditional heavy Indian saris and filled with cotton paper. Cotton paper is an excellent choice for photo albums, as it is both acid free and exceptionally enduring; it can last hundreds of years without deteriorating or fading. Each album is quite individual and they make brilliant albums for holiday memories or as a souvenir of gap-year travels.
Whilst some brides and grooms may be happy to 'splash the cash' on a top quality honeymoon photo album, many will be just looking for a smaller, simpler way to display a few favourite snaps to show around family and friends, or perhaps a honeymoon album to give their parents. We have several that are specially designed for honeymoon memories in a smaller format. This one is really popular; handbound with textured ivory mulberry paper, it's filled with just 20 pages of acid free paper that will take photos up to 10x8" in size and your own choice of snap to go into the little window on the cover.
New this season is our Tropical Honeymoon Album. We cover it in bright white linen and on the cover is a leather panel foil blocked in an exotic sea-green with a design of tropical foliage, mounted on a pale blue card. This boxed album has 30 interleaved cream card pages to take photos up to 7x5". There even a keepsake box to match to hold all the honeymoon mementoes.
One question that we are constantly asked is how best to fix the photos into an album of this kind. Well, there are several options, but it is really very simple. One of the
most popular ways to mount photos is to use transparent photo corners, which
come in packs of 250.
Another alternative is to use photo glue dots. These are
really easy to use! They are sticky on both sides, so you just peel off the
backing strip, pop one onto each corner of the photo, remove the clear film and
press the photo onto the card. Done! Our standard pack contains 64 dots, but if you have a lot of photos you are better off buying a bumper pack of 1600.
Finally, you can choose an adhesive tape runner to do all the work for you! Just run the device along the edge of the photo and it will
dispense a section of sticky tape. Peel off the backing and it’s ready to use.
The other way to display photos is to go for an album with slip-in sleeves. Whilst quick and easy to use, you will usually find these take just smaller photos, usually 6x4". It is worth checking too that the the photo sleeves themselves are made from acid-free materials.This little honeymoon album contains acid-free pockets for 100 6x4" photos and makes a very portable album to show off to envious friends!
Here is another pretty album just for honeymoon memories with 40 6"x4" slots, which has a companion album for general use.
Honeymoons or holidays, classic or contemporary, with over 180 photo albums in stock and all the necessary fixings, we are bound to have an album to suit you! And if you need help in choosing the right one, just give us a call, we're always happy to help and advise!
