Since Henry was born I've become a bit of a photo junkie. Ok,well, I've always been a bit of a photo junkie - you only need to look through this blog to see I spam you guys with about 100 photos for every blog post - sorry about that.
But since Henry arrived, my photo addiction has definitely gotten worse. To be fair, he is super cute, and as he's gotten older I've definitely been taking more and more photos (some of this may be down to realising I didn't take as many as I would have liked when he was really little, probably due to life adjustments and lack of sleep, so I'm compensating). And like any self-respecting mother I want to share ALL of the photos. However I'm very aware that not everyone on my Facebook friends lists wants to be inundated with photos of Henry. And I have a set criteria for images for my blog, so a lot of them aren't appropriate.
We also live quite far away from both sets of Grandparents, so they only really see him every couple of months, and through photos.
Recently I was contacted by Lifecake to try out their mobile phone app* which is specifically designed for parents. I'll describe the app the way the team does "parents can upload images and videos of their child, creating a seamless timeline of every moment. They can then privately share them with friends and family". Basically this is absolutely perfect for us. And I'm going to tell you why.
I've always wanted my children to be closely connected to their family, but being 70 odd miles away does stunt that a little, but this app means they can pop in to it when they want and see how he is growing up and developing.
It means saving phone storage at both ends, and downloading via Whatsapp. It's all in one place at the click of an app. Plus if the Grandparents love a particular photo, then they can download it to keep. Everyone is happy. You can also sign up your partner, and they can upload images and videos too.
I'm not going to lie, within the first week of having the app, I think Dann and I uploaded over 100 photos.
What I really love is that the app reads the meta-data of the image/video and will place it in a perfect timeline, and caption each one with Henry's age so you can really easily tell how old he is. You can also 'like' images, and leave comments too.
On top of this you can make in-app purchases, including prints, magnets and a calendar.
We decided on the calendar* ahead of the new year, and have filled it with all our favourite photos of Henry and us as a family ready for 2017. I really love that you can have four images per page, as I don't think I could have picked just 12 images!
And of course, prints are always a must. We picked their retro* (11) and mini retro* (23) prints, and I love them! They come on tick matte card which I think have to be my favourite format. I like a glossy photo, but I think these look so much nicer in a matte finish. The mini prints are so so cute and will be going in some of our Christmas cards.
I also love the look of the magnets, and think they would make an amazing collage on a fridge (our fridge is within a cupboard so we can't use magnets or I'd have definitely made a collage for the front of the fridge).
You can also order photobooks on their website too!
I think the thing that really tops this off for me, is that it is part of the Canon Company, and I adore Canon (owning a Canon myself), and it has such a good reputation, so this gives the app some extra credit too. It makes sense for a camera company to be focused on photos and families, and I think this addition is really great for them.
So what you waiting for, download the app, available on Android and IOS, just search Lifecake, and get uploading those photos! The perfect way to get organised ahead of 2017, and set that resolution to get more photos, and more sharing with your loved ones, cos man do these little ones grow up FAST!
*discount code provided to order products - all opinions, as always, are my own.
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