MyPublisher Love Fest

Normally I’m not a big Valentine’s Day kind of girl.  Colby and I exchanged gifts and did a big night out in our first year of dating but ever since then Valentine’s Day has been pretty lack luster.  For the most part, it’s just another day.  But for some reason I got the bug in me to make something ridiculously awesome for my man this year.  Maybe it was because of my recent discovery of MyPublisher and its amazing custom photo books?  I think MyPublisher had something to do with my Valentine’s Day gift to Colby.  Why yes, I did in fact make Colby a photo book, which arrived just in the nick of time for V-Day.

Honestly, it’s not my best work.  I was kind of in a hurry to get it done.  I discovered MyPublisher around the first of February, thanks to a blog post over on Young House Love, fell in love with their software and product, and decided it would be the perfect gift. I didn’t have much time to spend photo editing or really putting alot of thought into the book.  I just kind of flew through it, adding pages and pictures here and there.

Thankfully, I had a sick organizational system for all my photos, which made the book creation super easy and fast to put together.  Thank goodness for a little organization!  When I first started the project, I wanted to make a book called “Angie & Colby The Dating Years: 2009-2011” but by the time I finished uploading pictures and adding pages for 2010, I had already maxed out the book at 100 pages.  So this photo book only goes through 2010 but that just means I get to make a book solely for 2011 and every year thereafter.

I organized the book primarily in chronological order.  Pictures were pretty slim in 2009 (the pre-blogging years) but there were a ton of pictures for 2010.  Alot happened for us in 2010.  We moved into our first apartment, later bought a house, and then adopted a dog.  I’m surprised that the book isn’t entirely composed of Goose or house projects photos, but there’s a good balance of those pictures with other family photos, like these of my brother’s red union suit that he got for Christmas a couple years ago.

Let’s talk price.  The original price for the book I made was about $125 when it was all said and done.  That’s for a hardcover book with customer photo covers and spine, full color, maxed out at 100 pages.  And it was the 12″ book.  What I’ve quickly learned, is that there is almost ALWAYS a coupon out there for MyPublisher.  I had a 40% off coupon so in the end, including shipping, my cost was $85.  I know it’s a little pricey but it’s so worth it.  I would have spent just about as much to print out all of the photos and also buy an album to put them in.  Bonus…the book takes up a fraction of the space of a photo album with the same amount of pictures in it.

I loved categorizing my pages and creating custom layouts for each page.  I opted for the hybrid book so I could include both pictures and captions on pages, or just pictures, or just words.  It was a great combo that gave me alot of flexibility.  The MyPublisher software also offer tons of themes (wedding, baby, travel, and other designs) with different backgrounds and graphics.  However, I just went with a simple, classy white background which really let my photos stand out and be the star of the book.  I like how it kind of looks like a gallery.

As for how hard/easy the program was the operate?  Well, there was a small learning curve associated with the software.  How MyPublisher works is that you download their software onto your computer, which means you can work on the photo book on or off line.  Then you upload your pictures, I opted to upload and work in one or two folders at a time, and then pick your page format and insert your pictures.  They even allow for basic photo editing and cropping of your pictures.

When the  book was all done, it was just a simple upload and purchase.  Well, it was supposed to be simple but you see, I have an ancient Mac that doesn’t upload (or download) files terribly fast.  I ended up leaving my computer on all night so it could upload the photo book properly.  But it worked, and n0w the photo book lives happily on the shelf above our desk.

I see a few more photos books happening in the near future and can see our collection quickly growing.  Can’t you see a slew of photo books with all sorts of colored spines lined up on that shelf?  I sure can!  The next book I want to tackle is “Angie & Colby – 2011” and then “Russia – 2011” which will chronicle my Russian travels from back in May, and then once we’re married we’ll obviously be putting together a wedding book, and then looking forward I can totally see us doing a yearly photo book titled “The Campbell Family Yearbook”.  Cue up the “awwwwwwws”.

Oh, and I should also mention that Colby absolutely loved his gift!  Loved, loved his gift!  The night I gave it too him, we sat down as a family, with Goose of course, and looked at the album together.  Goose loved his baby pictures.  He was so cute back then.  And I cannot confirm nor deny that one of us (feel free to guess) teared up a little bit.  Awwwww.

Pssst…And by the way, Colby got me a pair of super sparkly, awesome earrings for Valentine’s Day!  He did good….real good!  Hope you all had a fabulous Valentine’s Day with all your loves!

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