Even though I take a ton of photos for book projects, I have run short a couple of times. While stock photography is always an option, there are many things you can scan in lieu of photos. Here’s a short list of items you can scan to give your books even more personal relevance:
• Invitations
• Birth announcements
• Letters
• Postcards (scan front and back)
• Yearbook pages
• Journal entries
• Concert tickets
• Recipes
• Passport stamps
• Newspaper clippings
• Flowers and leaves
• Children’s hands (lay them right on the scanner)
• Airline tickets
• Maps
• Playbills
• Artwork
• Menus, matchbooks, or coasters
• Currency
• Fortune Cookie fortunes
Once you’ve scanned and saved the images as jpg files, you can easily import them into BookSmart just like you would a photo. Here’s a sample spread from one of the Blurberati; Laura used pages from her travel journal in the book she made about a recent trip to Mexico.
Need a few scanning tips? Here’s a post to help you out. What else would you scan to add an extra layer of meaning to your books? Share your ideas below.
2 Comments
Before putting images of currency in a book, check the laws of that country regarding reproductions of their currency. For example, the US requires that the images be smaller than 75% or larger than 150% of the actual currency. (There are other requirements, too.) Other countries likely have similar laws.
If you don’t have a scanner, or even if you do, sometimes it’s easier to just take a digital photo of some of these items, especially things like maps and other items that are too large to fit on a scanner. Just put the item on a neutral background - you can hang it on the wall as well - take the photo, and you can crop away what you don’t want in the picture.