The kids and I just spent a while scrapbooking and organizing our supplies - and I've realized how much I've come to appreciate printing our own pictures. We're not the kind of people who get pictures printed in the first place, so we don't usually have many around to scrapbook with. Indeed, most of the printed pictures of the kids I have are the ones my mother has sent us.
But I do want us to have more recent pictures to use, and now we can print them affordably using the photo paper available at the Dollar Tree. The paper comes in two sizes: 8 8.5 x 11 sheets (which you can use to print 1 8x10, 2 5x7 or 4x6, 4 3.5x5 or 9 wallet size pictures) or 20 4 x 6 sheets. I personally prefer the 3.5 x 5 size for scrapbooking (if for no other reason than the frames I have are those sizes), so the larger sheets are more convenient for me - or they would be, if I was able to cut straight! Well, the frames hide the imperfections. I calculate that combining the cost of the paper and printing, I'm probably spending 4 to 5 cents per 3.5x5" print and 7 cents per 4x6 print. That's really not bad at all. Of course, my calculations might be off :-)
What really surprises me is the quality of the prints. The paper is glossy and the prints look great - specially considering our low end printer