How to Make a Photo Book of Your Year! 🥂 🖼️ | A Fun, Simple New Year Tradition
Dakota WiengesIf you’re looking for a simple New Year’s ritual that feels better than another resolution list, try turning last year’s camera roll into something you can actually hold. This guide will show you exactly how to make a photo book of your year, step by step, using photos you already have on your phone, camera, or hard drive. Whether you’re a casual snapper or a seasoned shooter who already knows how to make a book with photos, this version is all about personal memory-keeping - not publishing, selling, or going “pro.”
From the snapshots you grabbed on hikes with your favorite cute camera straps to the moments quietly living on your SD Memory Card Organizers, you already did the hard part by pressing the shutter. Now we’ll walk you through choosing your story, picking a format, and printing a book that feels like a New Year love letter to the last twelve months of your life. If you are dreaming of selling your work someday, you can always pair this with our more advanced guide to publishing a photography coffee table book, but this one is designed for anyone, with any camera, who just wants their year to live somewhere more special than the scroll.
Step 1: Gather your photos (without losing your mind)
Before you worry about layouts, fonts, or cover designs, the first step in learning how to make a photo book as a New Year tradition is simply getting all your favorite images into one calm, non-chaotic place. Right now, your last year is probably scattered across your phone, camera, cloud, and maybe an external hard drive. That’s okay. We’re not organizing your entire photo library for life, we’re just pulling together the best moments from this one year as a way to look back before you move forward.
Start by creating a dedicated album or folder called “2025 Photo Book” or “2026 Photo Book” (or whatever year you’re working on). On your phone, make a new album; on your computer, make a new folder - bonus points if you pin it so it’s always easy to find.
Then, scroll month by month through your photos. For each month, tap the little heart or “favorite” icon, or add images straight into your “2025 Photo Book” album. Aim for a mix of:
- Big milestones: moves, new jobs, trips, anniversaries, concerts, weddings, graduations.
- Tiny everyday moments: your morning coffee, walks, sunsets, pets being weird, messy kitchen moments, game nights, beach days, grocery store flowers.
To avoid overwhelm, give yourself one simple rule: pick 5–10 favorite photos per month to start.
That’s it. If you can’t decide between 9 and 11, don’t stress - it’s just a guideline, not a law. The goal is to gently shrink your 4,000-photo camera roll down to a highlight reel, not to find “the single best shot” of every moment.
If you get stuck or everything starts to blur together, this is where your existing Wildtree content can tag in to help. We’ve already got a full blog on culling in photography that digs into how to quickly sort through big batches of images, deal with decision fatigue, and choose the shots that tell your story best. Skimming that guide alongside this step can make the whole “narrow it down” process feel way less emotional and way more doable.
By the time you’ve worked your way through the year, you’ll have a tidy “2025 Photo Book” album that already feels like a loose draft of your story. If you’ve ever wondered how to make a book with photos that doesn’t feel random or cluttered, this simple New Year sorting ritual - plus a little help from that culling guide - is the secret your future self (and your sanity) will thank you for.
Step 2: Choose Your Story or Structure
- Do you want it to feel like reading a journal of your year, start to finish?
- Or more like a highlight reel, where every page is a greatest hits moment?
Option 1: By Month – a January–December Timeline
This is the classic year-in-review style. You start with January and move through to December, letting seasons, holidays, and life events naturally carry the story.
This works beautifully if:
- You had a big, eventful year (moves, trips, new jobs, celebrations).
- You like seeing time pass - snow to spring flowers to beach days to cozy fall.
- You want “this year of life” to be the main character.
You might label your sections simply:
- “January – Slow Mornings & Fresh Starts”
- “April – Mud Season & Road Trips”
- “September – Back to Routines”
It reads almost like a visual diary, where each month feels like a tiny chapter.
Option 2: By Theme – Adventures, Home, Friends, and More
If your year feels less about dates and more about vibes, a themed structure can be magic. Instead of asking, “What happened in March?” you’re asking, “What did this year feel like?”
Some theme ideas to get you started (you can also peek at our Outdoor Photography Ideas blog for more shot inspiration):
- Adventures: hikes, beach days, road trips, plane windows, city walks
- Home: kitchen moments, Sunday mornings, plants, renovations, cozy corners
- Friends & Community: game nights, parties, dinners, concerts, gatherings
- Family: big gatherings, quiet couch moments, kids’ milestones
- Pets: every silly face, walk, nap, and zoomie
- Creative Life: music, art, writing, sports, hobbies
In a themed layout, your book becomes more like a set of mini-movies: “Our Adventures,” “At Home,” “The People We Love,” “The Little Things.” It’s especially great if your year wasn’t defined by one huge event, but by small, repeated rituals and everyday joy.
Option 3: By Person or Relationship - "Us", "The Kids", "Friends", "Solo Adventures"
Sometimes the clearest story is about who you shared the year with. Instead of centering the book on the calendar, you center it on relationships.
You could create sections like:
- “Us” – date nights, weekend trips, lazy Sundays, big milestones
- “The Kids” – school moments, muddy shoes, birthday parties, little victories
- “Friends” – the people who show up for pizza nights, shows, and last-minute plans
- “Solo Adventures” – the days you went exploring on your own with your camera
This approach is especially lovely if you’re planning to gift the book; one section for each kid or each core relationship can feel incredibly personal and heartfelt.
How to Decide: Journal or Highlight Reel?
When you’re stuck between options, try this quick gut check:
- If you want to remember how the year unfolded, go by month.
- If you want to celebrate what mattered most, go by theme.
- If you want to honor specific people or relationships, go by person.
And remember, you’re allowed to blend them. You might use months as loose “chapters,” then weave in mini themed sections for “Trips,” “Home,” or “Friends” inside those chapters.
Whichever structure you choose, the goal is simple: when someone opens your book, the story feels clear. They don’t need you sitting next to them explaining every page, as the images themselves gently say, This is what this year felt like.
Step 3: Decide on the Format
Now that you’ve wrangled your favorites into a “2025 Photo Book” album, the next part of learning how to make a photo book as a New Year tradition is deciding what shape your memories should live in. This is the fun, slightly dangerous part, because once you start imagining all the ways your year could be printed, it’s very easy to fall in love with more than one idea.
Think of format as the home for your images: do they want to be a chunky coffee table book photo album, a stack of tiny adventure books, a creative zine, or something else entirely?
Option 1: The Classic, Standard Photo Book
This is the “anchor” format - the one that usually lives on the coffee table or bookshelf, ready to be pulled down and flipped through on cozy winter nights or when friends visit in the new year.
A standard photo book is usually:
- Layflat or traditional binding – Layflat is great for big panoramas, double-page spreads, and images that cross the gutter.
- Hardcover or softcover – Hardcovers feel a bit more heirloom and sturdy; softcovers feel lighter and more casual, like a favorite novel.
Choose this if you want:
- One main book that sums up your year
- Something that feels durable, giftable, and a little “official”
- A great backdrop for a clean, simple design with strong images
You can keep the cover minimal, just a favorite photo and the year, or turn it into a mini statement piece that matches how your home feels right now.
When you’re ready to actually print, look for companies that specialize in photo books and layflat albums. Popular options many photographers use include services like Artifact Uprising, Mixbook, Blurb, and Printique, as most offer different sizes, paper types, and binding styles so you can match the look to your budget and aesthetic.
Browse a few sample books on their sites, compare their styles, and choose the one that feels most like the home your coffee table book photo album deserves.
Option 2: Mini Books for Trips, People, or Chapters
Mini books are like the “B-sides” of your year in the best way. They’re smaller, more focused, and incredibly fun to stack or gift.
Some ways to use them:
- One per trip: “Desert Weekend,” “Pacific Northwest Road Trip,” “Summer at the Lake”
- One per person: a tiny book for each kid, your partner, or your favorite adventure buddy
- One per theme: “All the Dogs,” “Our Kitchen Year,” “Film Photos Only”
These are perfect if you took a lot of photos in one area (say, hiking all summer with your camera strapped across your chest) and don’t want to cram everything into a single book. They also make beautiful New Year gifts: just hand someone a mini book that’s basically “Our Year of Friendship” and try not to cry.
Option 3: Magazine-Style Zine for Creatives
If you’ve ever flipped through an indie magazine and thought, I want my year to look like that, a zine-style book might be your format.
A zine-inspired layout lets you:
- Mix photos with short stories, captions, or journal entries
- Play with collages, overlapping images, and negative space
- Treat the book more like a visual diary or art project than a traditional album
This is especially on-brand if you’re a photographer, designer, musician, or creative who wants the book to feel like a portfolio of your life and not just a collection of smiling photos. Include behind-the-scenes shots, outtakes, screenshots, and little scanned mementos (tickets, notes, setlists) alongside your favorite images.
Option 4: Alternative Ways to “Print Your Year”
Maybe you don’t want just a book. Or maybe you want your photos to show up in your daily routine all next year, not only when you sit down to flip pages. A few fun alternatives to mix in:
- “Year of Adventures” wall calendar: Each month in the new year features a favorite hike, trip, or memory from the last one. Perfect for people whose year was defined by road trips, festivals, and days outside. When the year is over, you can trim and save the images you love most.
- Prints in a box or on a display stand: Print 30–60 of your favorites and keep them in a beautiful box or a wood stand on your desk. Rotate the front print every week like a tiny, ever-changing gallery of your year.
If this part gets your gears turning, you might also love our photo gift roundup, where we share even more ways to turn your images into blankets, wall art, and keepsakes: Personalized Photo Gift Ideas.
Bring it Back to Your Year
As you pick a format, zoom out and think about what your last twelve months actually looked like:
- Was it full of road trips, hikes, festivals, or photo walks with your camera bouncing at your hip on a trusty strap?
- Did you spend more time nesting at home, cooking, redecorating, or growing a garden?
- Was this the year of new people; friends, partners, babies, pets?
Let that answer guide you. If your heart says, “This was an adventure year,” lean all the way into that theme with your format and cover: a bold landscape shot, trail photos, campsite evenings, surf days, mountain overlooks. Or keep it simple and real with a flat lay of your everyday carry, like your go-to backpack unzipped, camera tucked inside, and your favorite Wildtree neck camera strap draped over the top, just like it looked before every road trip.
That’s the moment where your book stops being “just photos” and starts feeling like, Yep, that’s exactly what this year was.
Step 4: Design Your Pages Like an Editor
This is the part of how to make a photo book where your New Year project starts to look like a real, finished keepsake. Instead of dropping every image onto the page, think like a gentle editor: you’re curating a coffee table photo book of your year, not dumping your entire camera roll.
A few simple rules go a long way:
- Limit similar shots – If you took 12 versions of the same sunset, pick the best 1–2.
- Mix perspectives – Combine wide landscapes, mid-range portraits, and tiny detail shots to keep each spread interesting.
- Leave breathing room – White space is your friend. Not every page has to be full.
- Add tiny captions – Note where you were, who’s in the photo, or a small quote (“You said this on the drive home and I never want to forget it”).
The goal here isn’t perfection. It’s creating pages that feel like your life this past year: a little messy, a little beautiful, and full of moments you’re glad you paused long enough to notice before heading into the next one.
Step 5: Print it, live with it, and make it a tradition
Once your pages are laid out, the last part of how to make a photo book as a New Year project is choosing a few print details and actually hitting “order.” This is where your coffee table book photo album goes from “nice idea” to something that lives in your hands.
Keep it simple with the basics:
- Paper finish: Matte is usually kinder to fingerprints and glare; glossy can make colors pop.
- Size: Go larger if you want a true coffee-table centerpiece, smaller if this is a travel or “throw in your bag” book.
- Safety check: Back up your files, skim the preview slowly, and if you’re nervous, order one copy before gifting multiples.
From there, let the book become part of your everyday life: leave it out where you’ll actually flip through it, not hidden on a shelf. When friends come over, hand them the book instead of your phone. When you’re having a rough day, open to a random page and remember: you’ve already lived so many good moments.
If this process made you feel more intentional with your photos, turn it into a simple New Year tradition. Keep a running “Photo Book” album on your phone, toss in your favorite shots as you go, and by next December you’ll already be halfway done. A
A Final Word From Wildtree
At the end of the year, knowing how to make a photo book isn’t really about paper types or layouts - it’s about pausing long enough to honor the life you’ve already lived. You sorted through twelve months of tiny and huge moments, chose the ones that matter most, and gave them a home they deserve. That alone is an act of care: for your memories, for the people in them, and for your future self who will one day flip through these pages and remember what this season of life felt like.
As you hold your finished book - a little table photo book built from your own camera roll - notice how different it feels from scrolling on a screen. There’s weight to it. Corners to get worn in. Spreads that fall open to the pages you revisit the most. Leave it where hands can reach it easily, and let it spark stories on slow winter mornings, late-night chats, and visits with friends in the new year.
And if this process felt good, let it be the start of a ritual, not a one-time project. Keep a “Photo Book” album running all year, bring your camera along with a comfy strap, tuck a few extra SD cards into your organizer, and let your next twelve months quietly collect themselves. One year, one book, again and again until you’ve built not just a stack of albums, but a tangible record of a life well-lived, one New Year at a time.
