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Ever since William was born I have been trying to take more pictures. Before he came along my husband and I were not much for photos. ( There are literally years missing from our life.) It’s not that we had anything against taking pictures, it’s just that we would never think to bring a camera, or if we did remember to bring it, the battery would be dying, or some other lame excuse. Now I’m making it a point to document our lives a bit more. (This blog serves that purpose also.)
Well now that I’m taking more pictures, I figured it’s also time to display them somehow. Since our home is still under construction, I don’t really have the option of a photo wall just yet, but in the mean time I have been looking into designing and printing photo books.
Today I was super excited to receive one of my photo books in the mail. This one is of my baby shower. (This was when I first really decided to take more pictures.)
I compiled this photo book on a site called BLURB. I read about it on a blog that I follow and decided to try it out.
I think that it came out pretty nice.
Front Cover
Back Cover
For the front and back covers I used photos of our nursery.
I really like the quality of the binding. I purchased my book in hardcover, and I am not disappointed. The quality of the actual print is good too. Some of my photos didn’t print as sharp as I would like them, however I believe that is because they were very low resolution to begin with. A few of them were even taken with a cell phone camera. (Hey I said I would take more photos I never specified with what! 
) I designed another book with our engagement pictures, which were taken by a professional photographer. They are higher resolution so I believe they should print better. From there I will decide if I want to spent the big bucks to make an album with all our wedding photos.
It looks pretty cute displayed on a table too!
Has anyone else tried making photo books? If so, which program did you use, and how did you like it??
-Elza-
Love that blurb program. Really easy formatting for writing books too.
Yeah I thought it pretty easy to use also. I loved the different photo layouts they have.
I could have written those first 2 paragraphs word for word! We have very little pre-baby pictures but I made sure to get a DSLR camera when Alex was born and now have tons of her at least. I made a photobook from our honeymoon to start (we use shutterfly) and now have A book for 0-3 months, 3-6months and 6-9months as well as a camping one because i had a free coupon and a lot of pics from camping. I love having these hardcover books because my house is also under construction so it’s the easiest way to display them!
lol I guess having kids made us see the light! I want to do some books of William too. I like the idea of dividing them into months. I have been taking a ton of photos of him! How do you like Shutterfly?
Shutterfly is good, the quality is generally very good (like you said, sometimes a photo doesn’t come out great but they are usually the low quality ones from my phone etc. or were blurry and i didn’t realize it). I like all the coupons and specials shutterfly has. I did a 66page book for 6-9months and spent 24 dollars with shipping because i had a 30% off and a 20dollars off as well as a free book coupon (which covers a 20 page book). I’ve spent as little as just shipping for a free book and at most 36bucks with no coupon (just the special they were running). Once i create a book i’ll leave it sitting until i get a coupon etc.
Wow! That’s a really good deal. I think I will try Shutterfly next time. My book was only 20 pages and I spent $35 on it.
Yes, I made a photobook of all our pre-Timothy travels (about 200 pages!!!) – also used Blurb, was very happy.
I made a wedding one through Picaboo and wasn’t very impressed with their quality. But they were cheap…
PS I chose blurb because they turned out to be the only ones supporting Russian alphabet – and I wanted my book to be in both English and Russian!
Oh! Good to know about the language capability. I was thinking of making a photo book for my grandparents, and in Russian would be awesome!
Thanks!!
I love Shutterfly!!! Have made and ordered many many books through them. And with their new custom design, one can literally control almost everything.
Your book looks very nice! I’m glad you liked Blurb.
I love photobooks, but haven’t tried Blurb – so far I’ve just used Shutterfly. I like the way your Blurb book turned out, though!
Thank you! I’m def. impressed with the quality. I might try Shutterfly sometime too.