Posted by Dawn Ramsayer, HP Digital Photography Communications

While I would have loved for grandma to be at my little 4^th of July party, a broken foot got in the way of bi-coastal travel. We’d been together on the 4^th as an extended family for the 5 years prior—so I wanted to do something to make her feel as if she were there.

Being in the HP photography business means I always take lots of photos. But this year, without grandma, I was busy making fruit kebobs, salads, vanilla ice cream base (for my new machine), setting the tables, mixing sangria . . . you know the drill. The time got away from me and I couldn’t start taking photos until just after noon. This is the worst time to do it, since the sun’s overhead and casts shadows on faces-- making wrinkles look worse – yikes! I took the photos midday anyway because once my guests arrived, my son’s shirt would be mottled with ketchup, chocolate pudding, and fruit punch.

Held the flag high for our national anthem.

Back to making grandma feel like she was there—I decided to make a photo book with our 6-year history of Independence Day celebrations. This way she’d be in most of the pictures, and I‘d include extra shots of the kids and the buffet table for this year.

I uploaded photos from the past five 4^th of July celebrations to Snapfish.com, and in 35 minutes, my photo book was on its way (I tend to go overboard on captioning, but for me that’s the best part). Here’s the cover. I easily cropped out the popsicle wrapper in my son’s other hand.

Snapfish mailed this photo book directly to grandma, with a copy to me (turned out better than I thought it would). She’ll be thrilled to have our multi-year history of 4^th of July celebrations to show her friends!

If you’d like to learn more about HP Photo Books, please visit www.snapfish.com (HP’s online photo service).

Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.