New Family Book
Like me, Blurb loves bookmakers. And Blurb understands that our lives are busy, action-packed adventures. So Blurb made it easier to create a lovely book, hurrah!
You may remember that I talked about making a book about our family for the holidays. I never got around to figuring out the details. So I was thrilled when an email landed in my inbox sharing that Blurb had a new series of Designer Books, books made beautiful with simple layouts and modern elements. Yay! Less work for me means a better chance that I will actually finish the project :)
I get sentimental when I realize how many awesome photos I take of my children, yet how few albums we have in the house. They can rarely see, touch, or share the photos. No longer. Today their cousin Mila visited and guess what they both had to read for her!
Bookmaking also means a lot to me because I use words that I know will inspire Anika (she has Dyslexia). I sprinkle a few challenging words in with her successful words so she doesn't get too frustrated. Of course, knowing she is the star of the story helps motivate her, too!
My Family Book was incredibly simple to write. The entire process is online- no programs to download. I could import photos from my computer or many photo-sharing sites. I chose photos that we all loved.
I started with a family portrait (from our holiday card) and wrote We are a happy family. I then played a game where a photo inspired words, or I found a photo to match my idea. I wanted a living history- a little like the family values poems that say Our family believes in laughter and love... Like that with photos. So our book has We dance, we support each other, we play together. I kept a pattern with the sentences starting with We with an active verb.
The last pages say, We laugh and laugh... because we are a happy family. Ending with the beginning makes the kids smile. They want to read it again and again.
Books bring families together :)
Oh, I almost forgot. I expected the book to be a lot more expensive that it actually cost, so I had a little extra at checkout. I saw they can now make ebooks. What? Was that only a few years ago I spent hours trying to convert a picture book into an ebook? No longer. Now they can automate the entire process and even put the book in the iBookstore if you wanted a wider audience.
My family book isn't meant for that, so I opted out of publishing it to a bookstore, but I tested the ebook feature. You can see the ebook here. The download is free. Perhaps it will inspire your own Family Book :)
Blurb would love to encourage your bookmaking, so they sent me a code for $10 off your own Designer Book. Use SHARE10 at checkout for your $10 credit. This offer is good through March 31, 2013, so it's good that the books are quick and easy!
Enjoy! I would love to see what you create!
*This post was made possible by a generous Blurb offer to create a book. Fortunately, I believe that our stories should be shared, so inspiring other to create a book makes all of us happy :)
