This post was sponsored by Blurb Books. All opinions are my own based on my experience with the company, services and product.
Now that it’s November, we can talk about holiday gifting, right? I mean, I’m already listening to Christmas music (the Britney Holiday station on Pandora is the best around) so planning, ordering and wrapping gifts seems to be the natural progression around here. And because I went holiday crazy a little early this year, Justin and I have already talked about what Santa will bring for Gray and have decided that our goal is to keep things educational, easy to store and outside of the “toy” category. No stuffed animals, no trendy “must have” toys that will break after one use and nothing that can’t be stored in our already full play room.
And you know what? I’m really, really excited about the gifts we’ve chosen for him. We thought long and hard about what he’s really obsessed with right now and we’ve come up with some really great ideas – and the best idea of all is his custom Alphabet Book we made with Blurb Books!
Gray is currently all about numbers and letters so I thought a custom ABC book with photos of all of his favorite things (including a number or two!) would be right up his alley. I snagged photos of items from his day to day life and made sure to include all of his favorite things and I just love the way it turned out. I also totally managed to sneak in some of the things we’ve been trying to teach him for safety purposes – like his full given name, Mommy and Daddy’s full names and the name of our town – in between photos of his favorite number (nine!), photos from babyhood (the Kiss photo below will go down in history as one of my all time faves) and memories from his birth state (lobster pots!).
Making the book could not have been easier, thanks to Blurb’s easy set up – I just popped into the Photo Book options and chose my size (Large Format Landscape), paper type (Premium Lustre) and cover option (ImageWrap hardcover). After that, I literally just pulled in my photos and hit publish! If you’re in the market to write an e-book or to publish a book of your own, Blurb makes it so, so easy. You can actually sell your books through Blurb or upload directly to Amazon and Apple iBooks. All books come with a free PDF download and an option to turn any print book into a high resolution E-Book. I’ve actually already downloaded the PDF of our ABC Book on my phone to keep as backup entertainment for our Christmas flight home to Virginia – I’m hoping that plus the iPad plus Pirate’s Booty will get us through! All in all, the entire process from start to publish took maybe 30 minutes and I am so happy with the results.
I mean, look at the sweet little detail I was able to add to the book spine for my babe:
My wheels are turning and I think a certain toddler I know might just be making a book or two for his grandparents for Christmas gifts – luckily, Blurb has a “gifting” section with tons of inspiration and important order by dates for the holidays, so hop on that!
I can’t wait to see Gray open this on Christmas morning!
Now, where to hide it until then…
Now, where to hide it until then…
thanks for helping me snag these shots, Amanda Louise!
This is seriously the most perfect gift! I love this!
CUTE idea! so much fun. xo jillian – cornflake dreams
I love the cover!! So creative!
OMG I love this so freakin much! What a great idea!
This is such a cute idea! Thanks for sharing (:
This is such a good idea! Love how you did the cover too!
Love this! I was just saying to my mom I think what Presley would love most for Christmas is a book all about her!! hahaha