4 Ways to Send Photos to Non-Tech Grandparents
My mother lives a long distance from my family and loves to scrapbook. She often asks for photos of my kids and our most recent adventures. The problem is that she is not very tech savvy. I would love to teach her how to order the photos I have uploaded to Flickr, but I can guarantee that I would have to painstakingly walk her through the process every time. She can view my photos online and has even printed a few off on her printer at home by printing the entire web page. Maybe I could teach her how to save them to her machine from the web, but I would need to do this in person on a future visit.
I have had to get creative in the way that I deliver photos to my mom. I need a solution that is easy for the both of us. Here are 4 ways that I have sent photos to my mom.
1. Print and mail them.
This option is a lot of work on my end and not the cheapest solution. Although it is quite convenient for the recipient. I also do this when I get a studio photos printed.
2. Mail a CD of photos that can be taken to a photo department.
When I have over a 100 photos to send I usually mail a CD of photos. Then my mom can take it to a photo center to be printed. This is cheap for me, because it costs less to mail a CD than a pile of photos.
3. Upload and order prints from Walgreens.com. Then select a location near their home to be printed.
My mom would love me to do this every time, but I don’t like the time it takes me to upload the photos to walgreens.com and order them. She likes that she can go to her closest Walgreens which is around the corner from her home and pick up photos of her grandkids. This can be cheap for me, because she pays for the prints when she picks them up. (Another similar store can be used for the same purpose.) **Walgreens.com is currently having a half off sale through Saturday. Use coupon code HALFPRICE.
4. Upload your photos online, order your prints and have them mailed to their house.
This is my easiest option, because iPhoto on my Mac has a flickr button that instantly uploads them online. From my flickr profile I can order them through QOOP and have them sent to her house. It isn’t my cheapest option, but it is the easiest option for the both of us.
Have you mailed photos to extended family? What method do you prefer?
-photo courtesy of stock.xchnge
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I usually do Shutterfly, since no one in my family likes scrapbooking; I can create a memory book online and have it sent to them for birthdays or Christmas. But you can order pics from Shutterfly too. I just don’t know if it’s more expensive than these other methods.
I have been resolving to do family photo yearbooks since my kids have been born, but I have so many pictures, I get lost in the chronology, and then I give up on the project. I am saving the yearbooks for my empty nester years when I have way more time.
I do the mail-in-a-CD route. This year for gifts we gave the grandparents on both sides a digital picture frame. We thought this would be a great gift that gives all year long. I’ve seen other grandparents’ homes with a digital picture frame on their kitchen counter, a constant rotation of hundreds of pics all day long. I think our gift was brilliant but it has been received with mixed results.
I prefer to print it out and mail it. Its probably 15 cents per picture and then just one stamp. It can be pricy if I do a lot so I pick my favorite pictures and use those. Ive also complied a collection of pictures and put them in a collage picture frame. I plan to use Shutterfly this year for Christmas presents! I’ve heard its 10 $ (??) per book so I am interested!
I upload our everyday snapshots to Shutterfly.
There, the grandparents that are computer-literate can order for themselves.
And then I order for us and the great-grandparents who don’t even own computers.
Shutterfly has great print plans if you can afford to pay for a bunch up front.
Many grand-parents (including my mother) find it too long to download 100 pictures from the net (picasa, shutterfly…). So, sending a cd or dvd is the simplest way: most DVD readers will run a slideshow on the TV. But if you are sending from far (expl: from Europe to USA), send a CD can be tricky in the mail (costum delays, cd lost, damaged).
You can use http://www.shipyourdata.com to upload your pictures. Then enter the delivery address and shipyourdata will burn the cd and deliver it in America.
Express service available (when you are last minute before christmas).