photo: c. jane create on blurb’s facebook page
Most of us don’t have the photo chops to make a book as lovely as the one I’m sharing below by Casey Mullins. She is a talented photographer (and writer) and has an eye for editing that makes her pages so beautiful that I almost want to put a book full of Casey’s daughters on my own shelf. But that would be weird.
I will venture to say that anyone’s photos will be made more amazing in a Blurb book.
I played with the Blurb website last night and loved the experience. You can upload photos from your computer, grab them from your Facebook account, or from Instagram. I like this because the ones I’ve uploaded throughout the year are already my “best of” pics. No need to pick through everything on my hard drive or phone. The step-by-step process leads you through editing a photo book that gets published on high quality paper with a hardbound cover.
Last year, Heather and I brainstormed themes for photo books. Your comments enhanced our list and I thought I’d post them here in case you are inspired to put together a book for your partner, your parents, or yourself.
When you use Blurb, any photos you choose from Facebook can bring the comments along with them, so if you have already shared a milestone moment online, you can preserve what family and friends said in response. This can be great or not, depending on how sarcastic your friends are.
Note: We are affiliates of Blurb.com, but seriously, I have seen the books in person myself and they are covetous.
Disclaimer #2: If your images are not super high-res, you’ll want to order a smaller book than the one shown above. The Blurb system will guide you in the right direction and tell you if your photo is too small.
PS #3: Here’s a 25% discount for Blurb: HOLIDAYTHANKS
PS #4: I have to tell you that a gigantic book like Casey’s costs upward of $100, so don’t shoot for the stars unless you have deep pockets.
This is part of our Makin’ It series. We strive to include hands-on projects for all skill levels of craftiness, ie if you’re better with a computer mouse than with a sewing machine, we get that. See more projects here.
Check out “How to Win Starbucks for Life”
I have a family blog and Blurb is the ONLY reason I keep it up. Blurb allows you to “slurp” your blog directly into their software so all you have to do is play with the layout (which is really fun!) The mix of text and photos looks absolutely beautiful and professional, like a real, live book. (Most other photo books like Shutterfly and Snapfish only allow photos or minimal text). Every year, I slurp that years’ worth of posts and make it into a book which goes to the grandparents for holiday gifts and on each child’s bookshelf for a multi-volume chronicle of their lives. (Not that they asked…)
Ha! “Not that they asked.” Thanks for the tip @KTDO. I’m definitely interested in preserving my most heart-felt posts for posterity.
Ha! “my most heart-felt posts”… @Whitney, the rest you can just leave up here on the interwebs for the rest of us?
@ktdo, I must try this some day.
Yes, Blurb is the way to go for getting a blog into book form. It did still require a LOT of time spent editing pages and resizing pictures and changing photo layouts and things, but much less time than doing it from scratch would have been, and oh so worth it.
I have also made a book through them of 365 pictures of my daughter — one from each day of her first year. The quality of the books is amazing.
I haven’t done it in ages, since there hasn’t been another amazing Groupon deal in a while, but when I make them, the grandparents always order one for themselves too. When I was in town once, my mom was showing my blog book to a friend who said “Okay, I’m just going to come over someday and sit and read this. I’m serious, it’s incredible!”. I’m really glad to have it in book form…I suppose I should start working on another…
Love blurb for the quality and ease of use. That and you can work offline so you’re not waiting for pictures to upload, etc. Working on my daughters 3-4 yr book although I’m way behind (probably due to her 9 month old brother)! While it’s a lot of work, she adores her books. The daunting task is going to be doing one for her brother as well. At some point I’ll have to combine I’m sure but for now I’ll keep plugging away at separate ones!
We’ve used blurb to make photo books for grandparents and other extended family since my first son was born. Now, it’s the *only* gift my parents want at Christmas. The quality of the books is incredible! We keep the costs down by doing the smaller book in soft cover, but it’s still an amazing looking book. We just placed our order for this year’s book last night 🙂
Just as an FYI- the discount code above isn’t working. Not sure if there was a specific time frame on it 🙁