Mosaic Vacation Photo Albums

I made the switch to an iPhone a little later than most and the 1st trip I had it on was on the Northeastern Foliage Roadtrip we took in the fall of 2012. I had already been using Instagram but this trip was the first one I really documented somewhat through my phone using Instagram.

As I’ve mentioned in past blog posts, I do eventually create a physical scrapbook full of photos, admission tickets, venue brochures and various other paper souvenirs. I now also create a small 20-page Mosaic coffee table album as well. Mosaic is a free app for your smart phone (available for iPhones & Android) and it’s super easy to create an album using the photos on your phone (you don’t need a PC). The albums are high quality, beautifully made and ship quickly – I typically have it in about a week.

The cover, my stack of albums and the packaging.

You are very, very limited on options though. You have to have 20 images – no more, no less. Only one image per page with no text. You have no choice in album cover – it’s hardcover and comes only in black fabric. There is only size to choose from – 7″x7″. The only customizable options are whether the pages are black or white and you can now add limited text to the inside page. Oh, and you can randomize the images that make up the cover “mosaic” collage if you’d like. Price is $20/album (+$5 shipping for one book, $6 for two). They occasionally offer free shipping but I have never seen the album itself discounted. To be honest though, I think the lack of options is what I like. I have now created 5 albums and I like that they are all the same. The packaging they come in is awesome and they make great gifts. I have albums for the Foliage Tour 2012, Seattle+Alaskan Cruise 2013, NYC 2013 (two trips in one album), Budapest+Vienna 2014 and NYC January 2015. The lettering on the spine I did with stamps.

I have a personal twist to these albums though. Since the albums are already in a square format, I thought my square Instagram pics from my trips would work perfectly. Since I don’t tend to print those images for my scrapbook albums it’s also a way to make sure those images come off my phone and get printed somehow. And it also motivates me to get 20 good Instagram images per major trip!

Maybe now you’ll be inspired to go print your own albums, whether or not they are from Mosaic!

Interior & the cover collage using images in the album.

Below are sample pages from each of my albums.

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Tags: Instagram, mosaic app