Chatbooks

I might be totally late getting on a bandwagon I didn't know existed, but I used the Chatbooks app for the first time last week, AND I LOVED IT.

I have a lot of ambition and a lot of ideas, but like no time and a minimal amount of talent when it comes to being crafty. I like the idea of scrapbooking, but when it comes to the actual printing and pasting and organizing....well, I just don't have it. 

So I could order prints of my pictures and to put them in an album...but then I have to order prints and buy an album and then put the prints in the album. Time and energy that I don't have these days.

Before I had my boys, I would take pictures on my phone and then when my storage got too full I would delete the various selfies, pictures of margaritas, dog portraits, and memes on my phone. But now that I have the boys, how the heck do I delete any pictures? They're all of the boys and they're all good. I have to find a way to print them and organize them!

So I'm always scrolling through Instagram while I'm chained to my breast pump (I didn't choose the pump life, it chose me.), and I always see this sponsored photo for Chatbooks. I finally decided to download the app and give it a try.

Well I loved it!

Basically, this beautiful little app just syncs with your social media accounts and your camera roll and you can make these gorgeous little 6x6 books.

They're clean and organized and quick to make.

You pick what photos you want from your Instagram or camera roll, or you can just sync an entire Facebook album.

You pick what photo you want as your cover and  you can organize your photos in whatever order you want. You can do this with or without captions and dates. If you upload it from Instagram or Facebook, it will immediately include your caption and the date it was uploaded (but you can change the captions or remove them and the date). It's all so easy to customize, and you can do all of this with a kid hanging off your boob. Or whatever it is that you're doing. Très très appealing, isn't it busy mamas?

I made a quick album with 60 photos in under an hour (and believe me, I took time getting these pictures in order.) I went with 60 (but you can go up to 366 photos!) and my cost was right under $12.00 which included shipping. SO cheap! For an additional $5.00 you can get a hardcover, which is very cool.

I wanted to order a book as a trial run to see how everything printed. The quality is great! All the pages are a really smooth matte paper, and the photos print really clearly. If I had one complaint, it would be that some of my photos that were not dark on my screen, printed too dark on paper. BUT I got in contact with the Chatbooks Support, and had the most awesome response.

I corresponded with a woman named Brittany who was SO nice. She had me send her photos of the pages that printed too dark so she could compare to see if there was a problem with the printer. Then she brightened them up for me and she's having a second book sent out to me free of charge! AND now I have a good gauge of what photos to lighten and brighten up. (Which any Instagrammer knows it's always a good idea brighten dark photos anyways. I just didn't think to because mom brain, ya know.)

Isn't this just the friendliest email ever??? Talk about great customer service. 

Overall, I'm sure that a lot of y'all have already looked into this as an option, but for those of you who haven't, please do! It's easier to use and arrange than Shutterfly options, and it's so nice to have these little books on hand! I'm already imagining a nice uniform shelf dedicated just to these little guys.

As far as apps go, Chatbooks is a hard ten in my book.

I hope you give it a try and that you enjoy it!

To get your first 30 photo book for free, use my code AK97TMYU! (Although, I think this code only works if you get a subscription, which seems like a pretty neat option, but I can't speak for that.)

Here is the spine and some of my favorite pages. I took all of these photos with my iPhone, and I am not talented at ALL. They came out really clearly! And since the pages are matte, no annoying glare! 

These are some of the photos that printed too dark. The top I couldn't find the original for (WHOOPS). You can see the printed version on your left, and the original on your right. In hindsight I should have totally brightened these. But I definitely won't forget to do that for next time!