Photo Deals

The lack of blog posts lately is because I have been working on some photo projects. In the last few weeks I have taken advantage of some photo deals at both Snapfish and Shutterfly. Creating these projects has taken a long time, but it has been so worth the time.

First I have to admit that I was a loyal Snapfish customer and never even tried Shutterfly until last month. I had trouble getting Snapfish's 100 free prints with their mobile app and after much effort trying to work it out with Snapfish I decided to give Shutterfly a try. I have all our digital pictures since 2003 uploaded to Snapfish so I'm not completely giving up Snapfish. They will still be the first place I go to make photo books, but probably not the first place I go to order prints.

Once I tried Shutterfly, it was amazing how many free/cheap deals came across my inbox that I had never even paid attention to before. Here is what I have created in the last month.
*Snapfish small photo book with our family pictures taken last August ($10 off coupon so book was just 2.99 plus shipping)
*Last summer I created a photo book for one of our former churches in MN that was having an anniversary. I sent the photo book to them but I never ordered copies for our family. I ordered two copies at 50% off. I thought this was a pretty good deal because it was half price off the whole book-usually their deals are buy two get one free but that only includes the first 20 pages. So this deal turned out to be buy one get one free. One copy is for our family and one copy is for one of the boys. I would like to eventually buy one more copy so all three of the boys can have one when they are older. I'll watch for another good deal to buy that third copy at another time.
*Because I spent enough money on those church photo books I got credit for a free 8x8 canvas. So I made a canvas with a picture of Ram and Ewe taken last August. I just paid for shipping. This was an incredible deal as they normally are $32.99. Snapfish is still running this deal until the end of February if you want to get a free canvas! (Note: Creating this canvas was more difficult than I expected, it is difficult to crop the picture to a square shape.)
*Then I began a project that I have wanted to do ever since we moved in this house. In our bedroom we have a table where I do my sewing and scrapbooking and Ram writes sermons when he is working from home. We never hung anything on the wall there because I had this idea in my mind. We already hung the free canvas in the middle of the wall. Then I began making collage posters. First I made one at Snapfish and with $5 coupon as Valentine's Day gift for customers it cost 3.99 plus shipping.
*Then I made two more collages at Shutterfly. I used a $20 off coupon from Kelloggs. I also purchased one 5x7 print so that my total would be over $20. I don't think I would have had to do this, but I wanted to make sure the deal worked. I paid 97 cents plus shipping for all that.
*I received 50 free prints for being a new Shutterfly customer, just paid shipping.
*I took Joyfully Thriving's advice and ordered 99 free prints, just paid shipping.

I still have two Shutterfly coupons left that I plan to use before they expire.
*Johnson and Johnson company gave a code for a free calendar at HealthyEssentials.com
*Joann Fabrics gave me a code for a free 16x20 print. I plan to use this to make a collage of our churches and parsonage in MN. They also gave a code for $20 off home decor, but I do not plan to use that code as $20 is not saving that much on those items that qualify.

These collages that I created have some of my favorite photos of the boys. I still have plans to make one more collage and then I will be caught up. I plan to hang these collages around the canvas of Ram and Ewe along with some 5x7's of our family too. I will be watching for more photo coupons to finish this project. I love the idea of having these favorite pictures by where I sew and scrapbook.

Pay attention to your e-mails from companies like Joann Fabrics and Kelloggs because you may just run across good deals like this! Also pay attention to the expiration dates on these deals or you will miss them. I try to quickly scan the daily e-mails from Joann and other companies and see if there are any deals like this before I delete them. Most e-mails end up deleted, but there are good codes once or twice a month that make it worth being on some of these e-mail lists.