Monday, September 19, 2011

Book release party

I’ll admit it, my Christmas present to my husband last year was an IOU. “But there were extenuating circumstances” I protest! We had just moved to France two months previous, and although I expected we’d have moved out of temporary housing at this point and all of our shipped belongings would be available, it turns out we didn’t have access to anything until May! This includes our hard drive, which had all the pictures and layout saved for the book that was supposed to be the best Christmas present ever.


The whole project started early last year after visiting his parents' house in Michigan and looking through his baby albums. I arranged to borrow the albums representing the first four years of his life, slowly started scanning in all the pictures, restored and photoshopped what I could, added names to the faces, and finally put it all into a book. After several recommendations I downloaded the Blurb.com software, and my verdict is that it is easy to use, has the option of designing your own pages, and offers fair prices (especially if you take advantage of their frequent sales and discounts).


The book was almost finished when the computer got packed up, and only in May was I able to pick up where I left off, and it was August before I finished. However, the book arrived looking exactly as I had imagined, and I decided to organize a book release party with a few of our friends to present this Christmas present to Roberts. Things didn’t go as planned, our friends had to cancel last minute and so the book release party turned into more of a “here you go, honey.” But I am still very proud of the way it turned out and happy that my husband has a piece of his childhood that he will be able to share with his children.


I would also like to note that I am now a published author J

PS. If you are interested in how the book looks, you can browse a few of the pages here.

4 comments:

  1. I'm sure he loved the blast from the past and appreciated all the effort you put into it. Can you use this service for anything, or just photobooks? I wrote a book for children that I don't think will find a home at a publishing company, so I'm thinking of self-publishing.

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  2. It's not just for photobooks. I would recommend it over shutterfly, and although the formatted pages are super easy to use, it's also a snap to design your own. They offer volume discounts, as well as set-your-own-price options and all kinds of stuff for serious writers. Good luck!

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  3. WOW! Tik daudz bildes!! It makes me want to take out my camera and take more photos of my children for preservation purposes. You are an awesome wife for doing that and I hope he is super appreciative. Lane for our 10th wedding anniversary was putting together a digital slide show of our church wedding photos to music for me. I'm still waiting 4 years later. Maybe one day...

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  4. Lane sounds like an excellent husband. And yes, Liene's husband is colossally super-appreciative and excellent also.

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