On one or two of the snow days last week, I wrote a book. Really. I took pictures from the last year (most of which were already on barkdust or on our flickr account) and put together a book for our grandparents. While most of our family members keep up with us through our blogs and emails, our grandparents don't have internet access. And since they've never been able to come visit us here in Portland, I thought they might enjoy a photo album about our lives here.I don't really have any way to compare the book publishing websites out there so I just randomly picked blurb.com. I downloaded their software and was able to easily access photos both from my flickr account and from our home computers to include in the book. I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to put the book together. The software provided simple template choices that worked for me. Unfortunately, I didn't do this project early enough to get the books printed and shipped before Christmas so the grandparents won't get them until January.
I can't wait to see how it turned out. If the books turn out well I can see some great possibilities using blurb or a similar site to make photo albums. Since we've 'gone digital' I have gotten very few photos made into prints and have simply stopped scrapbooking. I'd like play with printing the best photos for the last couple of years into bound books.....or at least making prints of the photos of the Sprout once she joins our family in February.
Has anyone else used blurb or a similar publishing/printing website? I'd love to hear how your projects turned out.
5 comments:
Happened upon your blog and your question about blurb.com. Our daughter-in-law did a wedding book for her and our son's wedding. She didn't want to do a traditional wedding album and this turned out great. Their wedding pictures were all digital so she edited them and made the book. It really does look nice.
We used shutterfly a while ago. We really liked the finished product. It has been long enough though, that I don't remember if there were any quirks about it or not. It turned out very nice.
I've been tossing around the idea of doing this with our family blog. I haven't scrapbooked since the 3rd child came along, yet I DO record our (whole life) events on the blawg. So I've thought about pulling "the best of the best of the best, sir!" and turning that into a book for our shelf. I'll be interested to hear how they turn out!
awesome idea!
I just finished a couple of blurb books too (a wedding album for a friend and a family picture album of 2007--yeah, I'm a little behind). I'm pretty happy with blurb, but I think next time I'll go back to myPublisher. It's slightly more expensive, but the covers are nicer and the print quality is just a little better. I hope your book turns out great! I love the sand drawing!
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