Chatbooks

The gifts I most enjoyed giving this Christmas were Chatbooks. Whether they were as exciting to get as to give, I'm not quite sure, but I truly enjoyed preparing them.

Chatbooks.com is a website where one can upload photos and prepare neat little photo books for around $15-25.

I heard about this site from a blogger and immediately checked it out. Then I decided to create some books as gifts.

The book I'm most pleased with is the one containing old family photos starting around 1880-1890.  I made identical copies of this book for my sister Roberta and for myself.

This particular book starts with my maternal great grandparents, Samuel and Abigail Haines, a photo taken around 1890, and goes up to my mother's 100th birthday party in 2004. The photo book contains 89 photos in all, the majority from the early- to mid-1900's.

On the left here are my middle brother, Eldon, holding me, looking to be about six months old, and my sister Roberta, about two years old. On the right are Roberta and me stuffed into an old wicker baby carriage.

My kindergarten class is shown on the left here; on the right Roberta and I pose with our dog, Skippy. We're wearing our beloved silk pajamas, sent to us for Christmas that year by our brother, Eldon, who was serving in Korea during the Korean War. The year was around 1952.

Here, on the left are Grampy and Grammy Haines on their farm in Burtts Corner, New Brunswick. Peeking out the window between my grandparents is my mother.

The photo on the right is of my Grampy Haines, Grammy Haines, my mother, and my Aunt Betty with her daughter Gail. This was taken when my mother traveled to Manitoba to visit Aunt Betty, Uncle Fred, and Gail. Mum took this trip in the 1960's.

The Haines/McLean Chatbook contains 89 photos, most of which I had already scanned a few years ago to upload to my family's Facebook page.

When I first started creating a Chatbook, I overlooked the fact that the books are only 6" by 6." That concerned me when I realized it, but then I decided this is the perfect size, especially for old photos which are unlikely to have the high resolution of photos today.

The books can be ordered in a hardbound cover or a soft cover. I ordered two of each and have decided I prefer the hard cover.

One aspect of Chatbooks that I especially like is that if another family member wants to use the book I've created as a basis, then delete some photos and add photos of themselves and their children, they can easily do so.

All they need to do is contact me, I'll send them a code to use to access my book, and they can add, delete or whatever to their copy of the book without changing the contents of my book.

The other Chatbooks I created and gave as gifts are of the drive Ken and I took from Maine to Oregon and Washington last summer (for Ken) and the drive we took this past September with our friends Jim and Lynn through Washington, British Columbia, and Alberta (one for Ken, one for Jim and Lynn).

Chapbooks are a nice, neat way to preserve memories. Oh, and they're, as I said, fun to create.