My Absolute FAVORITE Photo Books!

Jackson and I usually take a daily walk out to the mailbox, he gets so excited when I ask him if he wants to go get the mail. I have to be ready to go right then and there because he immediately runs to the garage door and starts pounding on it saying, "Side! side!" which translated from toddler lingo means outside. ;0) Sometimes we walk to the mailbox, sometimes we take Jacey and the wagon and sometimes he wants to ride in his truck that he got for Christmas. 

 Today was a special day at the mailbox for mommy because she got a package with this logo on the front. 

So I thought I would make a post today about my absolute favorite photo books. I used to scrapbook all the time before I had Jackson, but now I'm like who has time for that?! It takes me a month to do just one page! Yeah, slight exaggeration, but really, putting my photos in a nice reasonably priced photo book is much more practical for me... and they look really cool in my awesome coffee table drawer. :0) 

Just a few things about BLURB! I used to make photo books with Shutterfly, and while they are cute and decent quality, I really hated doing everything online. It seemed like it always took forever for me to upload my photos to their site, and then I wasn't always happy with the quality of printing the photos. I will say though that they aren't a bad option, and you can usually find a coupon code to get some discounts when you order. When I ordered my photo book I made for our trip to Australia, there was a page that had bled/smeared all the way across the picture, and they sent me a new one no questions asked. I was talking to my sister though about other options, and she directed me to Blurb to try out and guess what... I'm HOOKED! 

One of the differences I like about Blurb is that you download a program to your computer to create your photo books. I downloaded BookSmart and it has worked well for me. So then you just open the program to work on your book and BookSmart will access your photos on your computer, whether you have them on iPhoto for us mac lovers or just in a folder on your desktop etc. Once you complete your book, you export it to their website and order. Just takes a few minutes. Then you wait to get that package in the mail with that little blue label. :0)

The book that came in the mail today I spent a really long time making... more time than I've spent on any photo book I've made. It is probably one of the most precious ones I have made as well, as it covers the first year of my son's life, from pregnancy to maternity shots to showers to birth to month after month of pictures of Action Jackson. Another thing I like about Blurb is that they are reasonably priced for their quality of books. And they always have coupon codes available to get a discount on your order. So here are a few shots of my little book. 

Front Cover 

Love all of the different picture layouts that BookSmart has to offer.

My sister took the professional pictures you are seeing in his book. I absolutely love Jackson's one year photos that we did in Galveston. Definitely memories I will always carry in my heart. :0) She also has a blog/website that you can access to the left of this post.

Back Cover - Love the image wrap option as well.

I also created a 12x12 book for our trip to New York. I love love love this book. It is huge and the perfect size to show off all the cityscapes and fun pictures from our trip! One thing I did differently with Jackson's book is that I did pay a little extra for premium pages so they are a little thicker. This book is great but some pages are a little see through because of the white background. So I would recommend the extra few bucks for the upgrade.

Title Page option

Love the Panoramic of Grand Central Station. This photo was taken on my iPhone and transferred to the book beautifully.

So when my sister turned me on to Blurb, she directed me to another photographer's website who used Blurb and had her books neatly laid out in a drawer in her coffee table. So I hate to call myself a copy cat but yeah... I LOVED this table and thought it would be a great addition to our new living room. Holds my photo books for people to look at when they visit, and also has space below to hide baskets of toys for my little man. Cute and practical. It's what I go for these days. 

P.S. - If you are like me, you like to send notes to people. I think cards are such an easy way to brighten someone's day or just remind them that you are thinking of them during a hard time. If you've never purused through Target's dollar section, give it a spin next time you stop by there. They usually will have little packs of 8 cards for a dollar, which you can't beat! I love these that I found this week with the gold embellishing!