We just recently celebrated a Disney land and sea adventure. While it wasn’t our very first Disney land adventure, it was our very first Disney sea adventure. Madison and I have been on numerous trips, and I’ve always managed to get most of it on camera. However, I have very rarely been in front of the camera; I’m usually the one behind it. Also, once we get home, our photos either stay on the memory card, get uploaded to a flash drive, or are memorialized on my computer.
Lately I have been thinking of other ways that I could I could show off my photos so that everyone could see them, and photo memory books came to mind. I have made photo books in the past, quite a few of them actually, and have even given a few as gifts. I was however recently introduced to Blurb, an independent, creative book-making platform. They made it so easy to recreate my memories and best of all I could do it in either print or digital format. I decided that I was going to go with print.
I mean, who doesn’t love flipping through a good photo book? These slim, lightweight, and polished creations turn our memories into professional-looking storybooks. Less bulky, less wasteful, and less expensive than creating scrapbooks, photo books are the best way to preserve and share pictures. In a time when our society seems to be adopting a “less is more” mentality, photo books make much better sentimental gifts than any knick-knack ever could.
I was able to upload my photos easily with Blurb’s free desktop publishing software BookWright which made it so simple for me. I think my most difficult decision was actually choosing which size and swatch I wanted. What I received after I placed my order, was a book of such exceptional quality that I decided I was going to keep it for myself.
I however want to share with you a few reasons why photo books make great gifts.
They’re versatile.
I can’t think of an occasion that a photo book wouldn’t make a great gift for! They work for men and women, kids and adults, business owners, pet owners, teachers and clergy members. Photo books can be given for Mother’s and Father’s days, birthdays, weddings, baby showers, graduations and even as a thank you gift. They are especially great for the person who has everything. When in doubt, give a gift card to an online photo service so that the recipient can even make one in the future!
They’re customizable.
You can add as many or as few pictures and pages to a photo book as you’d like. You determine whether it’s a hard or soft cover, whether it has a dust jacket, and even whether it will be leather bound! You can set the theme, you can choose how many photos go on each page, and you can zoom into each photo to make the subject larger, which is a great feature for older gift recipients who may not see so well. (You can’t do that with printed pictures without paying more for larger size!)
They’re simple to create.
If you don’t have time for all of the above, simply allow the software to auto-populate the design template you chose with the photos you’ve uploaded.
They’re easy to duplicate.
Once you save and purchase your project, the hard part is done! If you want to purchase a duplicate, you can do so in the future because the project will always be in your account. If you make a photo book to give to one set of grandparents, for example, as long as you don’t add text unique to them to the book, you can print a duplicate to give to the other set of grandparents as well. You get double the results without double the work!
They’re environmentally friendly.
Printing out copies of pictures, purchasing colorful papers, borders, stamps, stickers and embellishments in order to make a scrapbook is all very wasteful (and expensive). Photo books allow you to print everything on a single page, front and back, and fit multiple photos on each one.
They’re portable.
Regardless of if they’re big or small, photo books are lightweight and fairly slim. This means you can move several from place to place without struggling under the weight of traditional photo albums!
They’re fairly inexpensive.
Photo books are a fairly inexpensive way to preserve those memories that you want to cherish for the rest of your lives. Much cheaper than a professional photoshoot and today I have an offer for you. Use discount code ANNMARIEJOHN for 25% off* your own photo book at Blurb.
So don’t be afraid to get in-front of the camera. Start taking more photos of yourselves and your family and preserve them in a Blurb photo book for generations to come.
What memories will you be adding to your own photo book?
*Offer valid through May 15, 2017 (11:59 p.m. local time). Valid only for photo books uploaded to and purchased through your own account. A 25% discount is applied toward your product total, with no minimum or maximum order amount. This offer is good for five uses and cannot be used for digital purchases, combined with volume discounts, custom orders, other promotional codes, gift cards, or used for adjustments on previous orders.
