I bought in on a group deal at jasmere.com when they were selling Blurb photobooks.  The deal was pay $22 for $55 worth of book, so I bought two.  I have given up on my ability to get our memories scrapbooked and off the computer.  I knew I had to take some measures just in case my computer decided to spontaneously combust.

I had to use them by February 18, 2011, and I figured I would have plenty of time.  Somehow I had forgotten my ability to forget about things and then procrastinate when I remember.  It’s a gift.

I finally used the code on February 8th, and lo and behold I could only use ONE.  Figures.  I used it for our 2009 picture book, which I had worked on over the past year.  This left approximately 10 days to get the 2010 book done.  No pressure!  I did get it completed, so I could use the voucher code.   I was aided by the fact that I had a cold and didn’t want to do much other than sit.  Luckily I can easily sit at a computer!

Going through our pictures over the last few years has shown me that I need to take more pictures of other people.  The majority of the pictures were of JUST the kids.  Though they are highly cute, I need to back up and get more pictures of the rest of the families and friends.  Brian wasn’t in too many pictures either.  I didn’t blog many of the 2010 pictures, though I had plenty.  The vast majority of my blog posts were related to either sewing or cooking.  I use my blog as the blueprint for the books.  It is my journal of our lives, and last year the journaling wasn’t very extensive.   

For those interested in my opinion on the Blurb books:

My caveats: I chose premium paper, lustre finish, and did the image wrap covers for upgrades.  I have only printed other photobooks at Shutterfly.

Likes: 

• I used Blurb Booksmart on my computer to do the books.  Once they are done you upload to their site.  This seemed to work pretty well and I would guess much faster than doing everything online.  The upload took maybe 15 minutes on my cable modem.
• You can change the formats of pretty much every layout.  This is great when you need to enlarge a text box or make the picture layouts different.  Most photo sites have a group of standard layouts and you can’t change much on them.
• The price wasn’t too bad, but after having printed photobooks before I expect a nearly 100 page 12″ x 12″ hardcover book to cost over $100.  Considering what I would have spent (have spent!) on scrapbooking supplies and printing out that many pictures, I don’t find the cost too high.  Comparative pricing on these books at Blurb and at Shutterfly shows that the Blurb book is about $80 cheaper.  Those extra pages really add up once you get over their allowable 20 pages.  Of course, Shutterfly offers deals all the time, so odds are you can get it there cheaper if you get in on a coupon offer.
• The books turned out very nice with good print quality.

Dislikes:

• Some formats are locked, so I couldn’t change the text boxes around.  I just figured out which ones they were and used other ones as a base if I needed to make changes.
• Once I got up to around 80 pages the program really slowed down.  Not horribly bad, but still annoying.
• I have been on their mailing list for over a year and have yet to see any deals or coupon offers come through.  I only got the deal through a Jasmere.com offering, so apparently they are stingy with the discounts.

My best advice when taking on a project like this is to not rush through it.  I know from whence I speak!  I can really tell the pages where I was tired and didn’t put in much effort.  Surprisingly my 2010 book is better than 2009.  I think it is mainly because I was so focused on getting it done and I had the program figured out pretty well at that point.  I spent more time in journaling in the book and explaining the pictures, too.  You really need to be in the “I want to tell our story” zone in order to do these up right.   Whenever I started to feel like not editing the pictures or not putting in text when it was needed, I would think to myself, “These are very likely to be passed down to our grandkids at some point.  This needs to have some quality to it!”

I also printed 2009 (13″ x 11″) and 2010 (12″ x 12″) in different sizes.  Note to self: need to pay more attention!!  I have 2011 started at the 12″ x 12″ size, so at least two will be the same size.

I think I may just sell off my scrapbooking supplies.  On second thought…I’m sure they will come in handy for various craft projects for the kids.  I also still need to scrapbook their school/sport/ballet pictures.  Lord knows those types of pictures don’t make it up on our walls!

I have also been working on an alphabet book for a while (at least a year on that one, too).  I came to a roadblock at “Z”.  I finally just gave in and took a picture of one of Kailan’s toy zebras.  I made it to give to friends and family for a baby gift, and one will go to Anya’s Kindergarten teacher at the end of the year.  A book an adult wouldn’t mind reading to the kids, because of the pretty pictures.  Not to worry…I didn’t put “W is for wine“. 😉