Zoom Albums

Have you heard of Zoom Albums? Zoom Album offers kits for little (3 inch x 3 inch) hardbound books that you can put together yourself in literally minutes. Ellen Marden, the how-to face behind Zoom Albums (she even demo'ed them on Martha Stewart), attended the Startup Princess Retreat. She was lovely — full of energy and great ideas. She would sit and put together these little books while she chatted with you and you could see first hand, just how easy it was.

Basic 411: using Zoom Album's free software, you drop photos onto their template. Then you print the photos on their special perforated sheet that's made to work with any inkjet printer. After that, it's fold, fold, fold. Stick, stick, stick. And then you're done.

Watch the videos here to see how quickly they come together — or you can check out a video of Ellen's 9-year-old daughter, Nancy, putting one together for her brother's soccer coach — so cute!




The possible applications for these have my imagination in overload. You could make little photobooks of each grandchild — the perfect gift for Grandma and Grandpa this Christmas. You could make one book every birthday as a mini-record of your child's life. You could scan drawings your child made and turn the drawings into a little illustrated story. You could make an album full of photos of your toddler's favorite things, and then keep it in your handbag to entertain your child during errands. How about party favors?

And did I tell you, you can print custom covers? Text, photos, whatever you'd like. Or if you're more of a scrap-book-ey person, you could make the covers from pretty paper and embellish them to your hearts content.

I'm so excited about these! And so glad I met Ellen. I feel like I should buy the kits in bulk, because I know I'll want to make dozens of these little albums. (Also, because the price point drops to about $6 a book if you buy large quantities — nice.)