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This should come as no surprise. I DO love Instagram. A bigger and bigger percentage of my personal pictures are being taken with it for sure. I love the square shape, I love the retro vibe, I love that I don’t always have to upload pictures to my computer and spend time ‘fixing’ them. With a click of a button I am done and it has been shared. Sigh…that is so great.
The pictures are fun to share online and they do come out nicely in my blog book. But there is just something so lovely about real, honest to goodness prints. These days people don’t make them enough. We use them when texting and and on Facebook or even have them appear as screen savers but hardly ever print anything. Such a crime. It feels like Christmas when the package arrives in the mail for me. Not only that, if my phone or computer crashes I’ve still got my pictures. (Okay, okay…I’m no fool. It’s my job so I’ve got everything backed up in three different places, including the cloud. But my guess is YOU might not so I’m really just thinking of you. I’m nice like that.)
Last week I saw this post on The House of Smiths blog. It was so timely because I have all sorts of vacation pictures on Instagram and I was just thinking about how I might print them out. If you don’t want to go through the article I will give you the highlights:
The first thing you have to do is actually get the pictures onto your computer. (Persnickity Prints, the lab, suggests using the LifePics App to upload your pix right from the phone but it took forever, timed out, and I thought it was confusing. So there.) Use Instaport to download all of the pictures from your Instagram account to your computer. Not only is this good for ordering pictures but it’s good to have the digital copies too.
Next sign up for an account on Persnickity Prints. I know of a few professional labs that can print small square pictures but I really wanted to try these guys out. Boy am I glad I did! The prints were fairly easy to order and I loved all of my choices. When you first choose the pictures you want to order it will look like you can only choose photographic prints. Never fear…right under the ‘Add to Cart’ button is the ‘Order with More Options’ choice. Click on that and THEN you will be able to see all of the good choices.
I ordered a few different things just to try them out. The bulk of my pictures were ordered as ‘4×4 Instagram print (with 1/8 in white border)’ on matte card stock. These were AWESOME! I love that the paper weight is heavier than photo paper and the picture surface is smooth. Even though it was ‘matte’ there is a slight sheen to it and it was really nice. Makes me think that the pictures might be slightly protected if a drop of water hits them.
I also ordered the ‘3×3 Instagram print (with 1.8 in white border)’ on pearl card stock. These little pictures were cute and the pearl was fun and funky but I don’t think I’d like all of them on pearl. I also ordered the Persnickity Prints Polaroid as a 3×3 on matte card stock. Eh…that was just okay. It really just felt like a 3×3 print that needed it’s border cut.
And the best part in all of this? I ordered the prints on Thursday and had them in my hand on Monday. I then took old school metal tacks and pinned them up to the cork board on my pantry door. We go by the this door all day long so it is fun to see all of our quirky little memories every time we reach for a snack. We still have plenty of room on the bottom of the door so I am going to plan on ordering these vintage looking prints every few months and keep trading them out to keep the cork board fresh!