Blurb Book Review - all of my 2010 layouts in print!

I'm finally here with pictures (and a review) of my Blurb book.  Here is a quick-run down of my book:

• I made a 12 x 12 hardcover book with image wrap cover and premium paper.
• I used the online book creation tool, Bookify, which has a 160 page limit.
• Instead of doing full-bleed pages, I chose to use the large square layout that is within their software, and I chose the border to be black.  I didn't want to worry about trimming for full bleed, and I also had several two-page spreads.  I thought the border (which actually measures at 9/16 inch wide) would be a good fit for my needs.  See photos below.
• I chose a white spine to match my front and back covers, which also had a white background.
• All of the jpgs I uploaded were 3600 x 3600 pixels, saved at a quality of 10 in photoshop, except for the front and back covers which were 3702 x 3675 pixels (this was the size of the cover images that I made last year, and I just did the same.)
• Shipping was really fast. I received the book 6 days after placing the order, several days earlier than their estimate.
• I love my book.  The quality is great, although there were two issues that I saw:  warping of the cover, and print quality of thin text.  See photos below.

Let's get to some pictures. Here is the cover.  The white background actually has a very subtle texture, which is barely visible in the finished product.  I had actually anticipated this, and almost decided to go back and make the background completely white, but out of laziness I didn't bother.

My title page

Some colorful pages

Some black and white (mostly) pages

Some more pages

Some more mostly black and white pages

My last page, which I call my Time Capsule

The binding

The spine

I had estimated that the 1/2 inch border all the way around would allow two page spreads to be visible without any part of them being hidden in the binding.  I was pretty close, but some of the black border does show in the middle.  It doesn't bother me.  I wasn't expecting perfection.

These next two photos show the two quality issues I have with my book.  First, the front cover has some warping.  My book was delivered on a rainy day, and I've wondered if the humidity was a factor.  This photo was taken about a month ago, and today the warping is not as pronounced.  Perhaps it will continue to flatten.  The Blurb book that I printed last year had no warping.

Finally,  there is a slight issue with some of the text.  I often chose hand-written fonts with very thin lines, and the printing process created text with uneven or jagged edges.  It was difficult to photo and is more pronounced in life.  But I think this photo shows the effect fairly well.  It does not bother me immensely, but I do notice it when I look at the pages.  It was only noticeable on really thin fonts.

Overall, I LOVE my book.  I am happy with the black borders, although I was a little worried about that when I ordered the book.  I had seen a few other books printed with black borders and thought it looked fun and dramatic.  You can also pick a white border, and I believe they have several colors to choose from.   In fact, I changed the border to white for my calendar pages at the end of my book:

I think I actually like the black border better than the white border!

I will continue to use Blurb for all of my book printing.  The biggest beef I have with them is that they occasionally run promotions (like 20% off), which supposedly they send out in their newsletter to let people know about them.  I am signed up for their newsletter and have never received notice of these promotions.  I missed the Valentines Day 20% promotion, but I was able to use the NEWBLURB coupon code for 20% off.  I had placed a previous order, but I think the NEWBLURB code can be used once per customer.  So if you place an order, I'd say give that code a try.  It saved me about 25 bucks.

Next Friday I will be in Las Vegas for Digiscrap-apalooza!  It will be the first time I have been away from my son for more than a couple hours.  And he has slept in the same bed as me from birth, so this is some serious separation that's coming up.  He's four and I'm thirty-five, so I think we can handle it, right? Yeah, right.