Chatbooks – The 30-second Photo Book That’s Changed My Life!
There’s a particular brand of parenting guilt I’ve suffered from for years – you may be familiar with it… it’s the guilt associated with continually putting off the mind-numbing task of printing out photos of my kids. I have literally thousands of them languishing on my iPhone, laptop, and Instagram and Facebook accounts, and several times a week I promise myself I’ll print them out, but the horror of actually doing it proves to be too great.
You know the drill – sure, you start off calmly enough, perched on the edge of an uncomfortable chair in K-Mart, squinting at the screen on the ancient photo machine, attempting to handpick all the best photos, one by one. But when it keeps freezing, you jab furiously at it, until it suddenly springs to life and undoes all the work you’ve just done. Face. Palm. You end up a seething ball of frustration, opting to hit ‘Select All’ before the urge to stab yourself in the eyeballs and run screaming from the shop becomes overwhelming.
Then there’s the equally hideous second phase, where you’re exhausted from the effort but still kind of excited to get the photos back, only to be completely underwhelmed when they hand them to you and they’re all weird colours and you somehow ordered ten copies of your blurry foot plus lots of close-ups of the dog’s nose. Awesome.
Well, here’s some life-changing news – you never have to go through that horrible process again, because I’ve made the coolest discovery in my 13 years as a parent. I’m not even kidding. This is literally THE BEST!
It’s an invention called Chatbooks, and a pile of them were casually placed in front of me last week by my friend Jasmine when I was having lunch at her house. She knew the effect it would have on me, and she waited quietly for the realisation to sink in and my eyes to go wide with amazement. There were about a dozen of the small, square, neat little books that contained all the photos on her Instagram account, and as I pawed through them, I knew my world had been changed forever!
All you need to do is download the Chatbooks app, and bingo! It couldn’t be any easier to turn your photos into gorgeous little keepsakes. The company advertise that it takes just 30 seconds to create your first book, and it’s pretty much right, assuming you don’t want to make any changes to what the app automatically produces (but if you do, it’s super quick and easy!)
When you set up a Photo Book Series, any photos you add from your social media accounts or tag as ‘favourites’ in your phone will automatically be added into your next book, with a new one being produced every 60 photos. You’ll receive a notification three days before the books print and ship, so you have time to edit them if you wish.
The other great part is the cost – it’s a mere $8 per book, with the bonus of free postage, and the app includes the captions, dates and locations that you’ve already written in your social media accounts, so it’s like keeping a journal for those of us who fail at keeping journals (moi!)
The softcover books are beautiful to both look at and hold, and they even have the added touch of the Volume Number and dates printed down the spine, making it feel like a proper little professional collection. If you want to get fancier, you can go for hardcover books for an extra cost, or make a custom book that can hold over 300 photos. Just in case you aren’t convinced, there’s a 100% money back guarantee if for any reason you aren’t happy.
So go forth and get a natural high from the ridiculously easy way you can create stunning photographic mementos that your family will treasure forever, without the angst and timewasting of a traditional photo shop. Move over mummy guilt, it’s time to make way for mummy smugness!