One of the gifts we received this Christmas was a complete surprise. It is the ultimate in Grandparents' bragging tools - a 244 page, full color, professionally printed and bound book detailing Gavin's first year (and a little before then.
Like any "self-producing" product, this one isn't cheap. The books start at $12.95 but a book the size of Gavin's is well over $100. (I don't have the actual price because I thought it was a bit tacky asking the value of our gift.)
The book actually starts a little before Gavin made his appearance. There are ultrasound shots and progress of the pregnancy shots.
But mostly the pages are full of full color pictures of Gavin. Gavin sleeping. Gavin playing. Gaving having a bath. Gavin torturing the cat. Gavin getting lots of attention from Grandma & Grandpa, Uncles, Aunts, and even some cousins.
Wouldn't it be fun if every kid could have one for every year. It could be so much more personal and meaningful than any yearbook could hope to achieve.
The book ends appropriately with pictures of Gavin's first birthday. Can we hope for another book every year?If you're interested in Self Publishing a book especially made up from you blog or other collections of features go to the website for Blurb: http://www.blurb.com/
Thanks for sharing Gavins book---that's the reason I started my blog. I am terrible at journaling. So I figured this would be a good way to get some scrapbooking/journaling done.
ReplyDeleteI did this for myself and my mom for Christmas this year! They haven't arrived yet but should any day. I can't wait to see what they look like!
ReplyDeleteIsn't it great that we can convert blogs to books? Right now, the program, BookSmart, that I used is now having technical difficulties slurping the blogs from blogger and a couple of other sources!!!! I was so sad to find that out because I can't start the next book!
ReplyDeleteIf anyone is interested, here is an e-mail my friend who told me about the problem got from the people who make the books:
"Several once-supported blog platforms (eg, Blogger) recently changed their API, which means BookSmart can no longer slurp them. We're going to be working hard to fix all our blog slurpers (including LiveJournal, Wordpress and Blogger slurpers, which currently aren't functioning properly). Unfortunately, we can't promise success for any given platform, and any fixes that are successfully implemented won't come until next year (hopefully early 2009). Currently, Typepad is the platform BookSmart can slurp successfully.
"Unfortunately it is not possible to revert to an earlier version of
Booksmart. "
Oh and just FYI, the book featured here was over $50 but under $100. The 11 x 13 book that I made for our Japan trip was over $100 for 184 pages, so it depends mostly on the size and number of pages, of course. Sorry this comment got to be so long.