Scrapbooks for Christmas Part 2

I'm back with Miller's second Christmas scrapbook. I also wanted to say a few more words about printing with Shutterfly.

I really like how the Shutterfly shopping cart works. Specifically, their cart lets you combine offers! For instance, I had a coupon code for a free 20-page book. I made my book with 28 pages, so I had to pay the extra $8 for those pages. But they were running a 40% summer sale (I believe it was with a Coupon Code), so I got 40% off of those additional 8 pages. The cart accepted multiple Coupon Codes. I like carts like that. (There are some restrictions, though.  I think I tried to apply a free shipping code once, and it didn't let me do that with the other coupon I had.)

Another time they were running a 25% sale (no Coupon Code required). Again, I got the 25% discount on the extra pages, on top of the free book.

Also, I like how the credit card field was formatted - putting in the dashes between each 4 digits. It makes it really easy to double check that you entered your number correctly. For some reason, I'm always worried I will put the number in wrong.

Now, back to that book I made for Miller. For the cover I chose one of the layouts I made for The Lilypad Month of Challenges. The challenge was to make a photo summary of the year, so it makes a perfect cover.

An unimaginative, and yet quite adequate, title on the spine. Brought to you by Bob the cat.

And here are some of my favorite pages.

The back cover. This was another layout from the Month of Challenges. The page was about my most favorite picture I took all year long, so that made a great page to put on the back.

At this moment, I'm not planning to make Miller any more scrapbooks for Christmas. But maybe some for the grandparents. If I do, I'll be sure to share them. Thanks for stopping by!

Scrapbooks for Christmas

About this time of year I start thinking about Christmas presents. I love to get started early. I've been turning to 8x8 inch photo books more and more for family presents. And I usually take advantage of any coupon deals that I come across. I recently received a free book coupon for Shutterfly when I was shopping at Safeway, and I also took advantage of a Groupon for a $10 Shutterfly book.

Miller really enjoyed looking at some of the small books I made last year for people, so this year I've decided to have some printed especially for him. This Christmas he will receive two books for the years 2012 and 2013, containing a collection of layouts that I think he will really enjoy. I chose layouts that focused on holidays, his activities, our little family outings, and time spent with his cousins.

Here is the front cover, on which I placed a layout I had made that year. This was a simple layout with a couple of cute pictures. The original page had a date and the words "silly smiles"on it. I went into my layered file, took those words out and put "2012" on instead. It was a quick way to make a suitable cover and an opportunity to include another layout into the book.

A simple title for the spine.

Here are some of my favorite pages from the book.

 

For the back cover, I chose to place another layout from the year. This layout honors a very special game that was played all year long and which began Miller's obsession with mushrooms. It seemed a good choice as a kind of "summary" page for the back cover - and a way to get one more page in.

 

As I hinted at the beginning of this post, this book was an 8x8 inch hardcover book from Shutterfly. I assembled the book with their online tool, and I have to say that I am quite pleased with that online tool. It has pre-made page layouts for placing your images, but you can actually modify them if you choose.

For instance, I chose to place a single image on every page. They have a layout with a single square photo, but it has borders that are quite wide all the way around. So I went in and made the image spot a bit bigger. I basically enlarged the image right up to their "safe" guides. As I stretched the image box larger, blue lines magically appeared. I interpreted those lines as the safe guides for the trimming of the pages. Unfortunately I had to make the same modification to every single page, so that was a bit of a pain.

But I really liked that customization. In my most recent experience with the Blurb online tool called Bookify, I found myself frustrated at times by their pre-made layout choices, and no option for tweaking them. The more I use Shutterfly, the more I like it.

I'll share Miller's other Christmas book next week. Thanks for stopping by!

Photo Book Comparisons

I ordered another little Shutterfly book. I used a coupon for a free book from my Ikea Family membership. The content of the book is the same as one of the little 6x6 inch ArtsCow books I recently shared. I wanted another copy to give to my niece.

I thought it would be fun to compare some of the different books I have - sizes, print quality, and format options.

First, here is the new book I got - 8x8 inch book from Shutterfly book on the left, next to the similar 6x6 inch book from ArtsCow on the right.

The ArtsCow cover printed a bit darker than the Shutterfly cover. Here is another look at that.

The back covers show a huge difference. In the Shutterfly book, the dark paper has been lightened substantially. I've seen this before in another Shutterfly book with a dark cover. I think their software is applying some kind of correction to the back cover.

Here is a comparison of different sized books: 12x12 vs. 8x8 vs. 6x6.

After seeing them all together, I've decided that 6x6 is just too small. I know some people think 12x12 is too large, but it is still my favorite. But for smaller gift books, I think I will stick to 8x8 in the future.

Here are some more size comparisons. It is interesting to compare the 12x12 and the 6x6. Although the length and width of a 6x6 are half that of a 12x12, the area is one quarter the size.

 

And here is the same size comparison for the 8x8.

 

In my post about my little ArtsCow books, I mentioned that the printing was a bit red. It was most noticeable in the skin tone in photographs and in this page with a gray background. Here are some comparisons to show that. Shutterfly vs. ArtsCow:

 Shutterfly vs. Blurb: (this photograph was taken on a different day with different lighting conditions)

But here are all three together. Blurb vs. Shutterfly vs. ArtsCow:

To my eye, the overall color quality of the Blurb book and the Shutterfly book are very similar. The Shutterfly printing is a tad bit darker (very slight). And you can see the red tone to the ArtsCow printing - the gray background looks pink, my son's skin tone is redder than it should be, and my niece's dress looks pink instead of purple.

Finally, I wanted to compare the spine. Both the Shutterfly and the ArtsCow books have spine areas with a very large overlap onto the front and back covers.

In the ArtsCow software I could simply type in my spine text. For Shutterfly I had to make an image to drop in. As you can see, my spine text on the Shutterfly book ended up being too big. I also chose a brown spine on the Shutterfly book to try to blend in with the dark brown background paper.

In comparison, the Blurb book spine area only wraps onto the cover about 1-2 mm. I really like this. If I remember correctly, in Bookify (Blur's online book creation software) the spine is simply typed in. Which is what I like - it's easier to just type something in than to actually design a spine.

One final thing:  my Shutterfly books have a strong unpleasant smell that I have not noticed with Blurb or with ArtsCow. It does dissipate, though, so that's good. (I am particularly sensitive to smells.)

Thanks for stopping by!

ArtsCow 6 Inch Book Review with Coupon Code for You

I have some new printed books to share. This was my first purchase from ArtsCow. I ordered two 6-inch hardcover books using a coupon code that got me the first book for 99 cents and the second book for 6.99 ($1 off) with free shipping. I have a similar coupon code to share with you at the end of this post.

The books are for my son, so he can have some of his own little scrapbooks to look at. I just chose various pages from my yearly books that fit together in a theme. I made a school book and a holiday book.

There is no getting around that a 6x6 inch book is small, especially when you are used to 12x12.  I like to place multiple photo spots on a page, so many of the pictures are very small. The text is small too, although I could still read all of it. These 6 inch books are too small for my preference, but they are just right for a little one to enjoy.

The fist book had scrapbook pages about Preschool and Kindergarten activities.

The outside edges of the book measure really close to 6 inches. Here is a picture of the width measurement, and the height measurement is also 6 inches.

The inside pages are actually a little smaller than 6 inches. They measure about 5.75 inches on a side.

I used the default text size for the spine, and it is nice and large. I have a white spine. I can't remember if you can customize the spine color.

The end sheets are a textured white paper. I like it. I'm a huge fan of textured white paper.

The first page is a right hand side page. You can put in a "title" page, but I just went right to scrapbook layouts.

 

The pages are stitched in the middle. It doesn't look especially strong.

The base book comes with 20 pages. The 20th page is on the left side, and then there are three blank white pages that follow. (You can pay to have those pages filled with your images if you want, otherwise you just have white pages at the end. And you can probably add even more pages to your book. )

Here is the other book. These have (mostly) holiday pictures from Sears. We always paid to have the permission to print the images, so it's all legit.

The print quality is pretty good. The colors are nice. I did notice that the skin tones came out a little on the red side.  And the gray background paper on this following page printed a bit pink.

I placed my order on a Friday and received the package in my US Mail Box 18 days later - so about 2.5 weeks to get my order. The normal shipping charges on ArtsCow books seem a little high to me. And every book has a shipping charge, even if you buy multiple books in a single order. But I understand they are shipping from Hong Kong, so maybe that is reasonable.

I'm quite happy with these books, and I want to order more, if I can get another free shipping deal. I just hate paying for shipping. I'd like to get several more of these little books printed throughout the year, and save them up for Christmas gifts.

Since I used a 99 cent coupon code on my order, ArtsCow gave me another 99 cent coupon to share with people. For every person who uses this code, I will get a $1 reward to spend at ArtsCow.  This code is good for:

• 99 cents for a 6x6 inch or 5x7 inch book
• Additional 6x6 inch or 5x7 inch books for $6.99 (a $1 discount)
• Free shipping on your order
• One 99 cent coupon per household- so if you've already used a similar discount code, I don't think you will not be able to use this one.
• This code is good through February 28, 2015; up to 20,000 orders; and ArtsCow can terminate the promotion at any time.
• CODE: Z099BOOKA5495

I actually wish I had ordered more books, but since I wasn't sure if I would like them I only ordered two. I had thought that I would still be able to use other 99 cent codes that other people share, but I don't think it works that way. So, I will be on the lookout in the coming months for more special deals from ArtsCow. I'd really rather buy made in the USA, but for some fun little gifts like these at a great price, I will consider international.

Thanks for stopping by!

Another Shutterfly Book

I have another Shuttefly book to share. The content of this book is similar to a book that I printed with AdoramaPix. I had this printed as a gift and shipped it directly to the recipient. I finally got a chance to look at it myself this past weekend.

It's a very nice book. It is the 8x8 inch size, and I used the standard paper which has a very nice print quality. The standard paper in this book seemed a little thinner than the standard paper in the other Shutterfly book that I printed. When I looked at my order history, both books were ordered with "standard" paper, though. I though the print quality was better in this book.

Cover.

Unlike the AdoramaPix book that starts directly with 2-page spreads, the Shutterfly book allows for a single title page on the right hand side.

Here are some inside pages.

The basic Shutterfly book had a few more pages than the basic AdoramaPix book, so I threw in some extra full bleed photo pages.

I've been very pleased with these Shutterfly books. Shutterfly offers two sizes that Blub does not: 8x8 inch and 10x10 inch. (as of this blog post, Blurb has 7x7 inch and 12x12 inch square books.) I may just have to consider Shutterfly for my next yearly album.