Blurb.com

[dreajoyanne]

Has anyone ever done a book through them? I'm thinking about doing a bound book rather than a traditional photo album - for not only DF and I, but also my momma and dad.

Also - have people included honeymoon pictures in their book? Or would you do that in a separate book?

Thanks for the advice!

 

[lurkyloo]

We used Blurb to make a photo guest book using our engagement pix, and to make photo books of our wedding pictures to pass around at our at-home reception.


The Guest Book is huge - 11x13, with a real dust jacket and everything! Here are a few (not so hot) pictures I took of the book - I posted the whole book (40 pages!) in my Planning Journal:

At-home Reception Book:

 

[PixyDusted]

A fellow Disney bride friend of mine just used them and had a BAD experience. IMO, go with a larger printer like Shutterfly.

 

[DisneyFairy19]

I forgot about this website... Carrie your book came out beautiful…

 

[LittleStinkerbelle]

I just got my first blurb.com book in the mail today. I did one for the trip we took to WDW a few weeks ago. I love the layout of the book and the fact that you can work on it off-line. On the downside, I don't think the picture quality is as good as photobooks I've done through Shutterfly. Many of the pictures look a little dark and most of them look pixelated (is that the right word when you can see the dots of color?). Anyway, it's particularly noticable in the smaller pictures.

 

[flowerbelle]

I just got my first blurb.com book in the mail today. I did one for the trip we took to WDW a few weeks ago. I love the layout of the book and the fact that you can work on it off-line. On the downside, I don't think the picture quality is as good as photobooks I've done through Shutterfly. Many of the pictures look a little dark and most of them look pixelated (is that the right word when you can see the dots of color?). Anyway, it's particularly noticable in the smaller pictures.

LittleStinkerbelle, what blurb book did you purchase? Did you purchase the largest size book/premium paper/dust cover, etc...??? I'm just curious because I'm in the process of getting a blurb book done for my wedding, and I love hearing other people's experiences--good or bad. Lurkyloo's book looks so amazing and beautiful and it's an inspiration for me to get a book w/ pictures looking that great. Please let me know your thoughts--or anyone else's. THANKS SO MUCH!!!

 

[CinderelliT]

I have never used Blurb but was thinking about trying it out since Carrie's looks awesome.

In my studio use Shutterfly a lot, and MyPublisher. MyPublisher is a little cheaper than shuttefly, and has awesome layouts and sizes. You can also download the software on your computer and work on it whenever, and then upload the file when done.

For Christmas this past year, we made photobooks of our kids from my belly shots while I was pregnant, up to present day. Then we just made multiple copies of the book - in mypublisher, usually any extra copies are 50% off or free - and we gave books out to all the grandparents.

 

[LittleStinkerbelle]

LittleStinkerbelle, what blurb book did you purchase? Did you purchase the largest size book/premium paper/dust cover, etc...??? I'm just curious because I'm in the process of getting a blurb book done for my wedding, and I love hearing other people's experiences--good or bad. Lurkyloo's book looks so amazing and beautiful and it's an inspiration for me to get a book w/ pictures looking that great. Please let me know your thoughts--or anyone else's. THANKS SO MUCH!!!

I odered the hardcover with dustjacket in the standard landscape size (10x8). I didn't do the premium paper. In terms of the paper, for comparison if you've ever seen a Shutterfly photobook, the blurb paper was a little thinner than the paper used in those. If I look closely on my Shutterfly photo books I can see that the pictures are a little pixelated looking but IMO it was much more noticable in the blurb book. I liked the process of working on the blurb book a lot better than Shutterfly. No worries about the site freezing up and blurb offers more flexibility in the layouts, colors, you can use your own fonts. HTH

 

[livinlife25]

Just wondering...Did you guys have a particular reason for chosing the dust cover or the image wrap? Did you use premium paper? I thought matte paper would be better for having people write in it....

 

[caryndisneydiva]

i've done several books through blurb and have had great experiences with them! i prefer the image wrap to the dust wrap, but that's just my personal preference.

 

[livinlife25]

What exactly shows up on the back with image wrap?

 

[beachprincess23]

I have to say I was very unhappy with their printing and book quality. I had tried them after hearing good things but hated it. They wouldn't refund the money but left me send back the book and make another one. I didn't want to use anything for the wedding through them so I ended up making an album of our trip to Puerto Rico.

I ended up making our book through MyPublisher and am very happy with the product.

 

[PrincessShea]

I hate to bump an old thread but I have some blurb questions...

Has anyone ever ordered the 12X12 square hardcover? I am at such as loss as to what size I should be ordering.

I want to make a wedding album and I think I am going to go with blurb because the other sites I have found do not let you use your own fonts. I know, stupid reason, but I am OCD about fonts.

I want to make one for myself and 2 other ones for our parents. Should I go with the biggest? Is square better? Or landscape? Or portrait?

Thanks for any advice.

EDIT: Also, Carrie I really like the at home reception layouts you posted above. Is that your official album or did you make another one not using blurb?

 

[OceanGdss]

I used blurb for both our guest book and our official wedding album. I liked the fact that if anything ever happened to our album we could order a replacement, unlike a 'traditional' album, which would be much more difficult and costly to replace.

I used a landscape imagewrap large book for our wedding album. (I think its 8x10, maybe larger, can't remember the exact size, but its big lol)

After finishing we had about 100 pages and it cost $99 to order. I used photos from Randy, which are high resolution, thus I had absolutely no pixelation, even in the very large photo layouts.

IMHO, blurb is awesome

eta: just looked it up, I used the 'Large Landscape' (11x13), had 124 pages, and the cost w/ image wrap was $94 hth!
here is a link:
http://www.blurb.com/books/567868

 

[Piggy and Bear]

I hae used mypublisher.com for 3 different photo books of Disney holidays (vacations) I recomeded them to my aunt for a cousin's wedding photos and they are really pleased with the end product. My DH is a photo pain. He likes things to be just so and he's impressed so they must be good. The colours are good, sun sunset shots of Barcelona harbour, sea scapes at Vero and even when I enlarged oe shot of me and D on the beach that was outside their 'best' quality and came up with a warning, the end product was beautiful. You can crop and move the pictures too. Their shipping rates to us over the pond were reasonable too!
All in all- very impressed.
Hope this helps
Viccie

 

[lurkyloo]

Has anyone ever ordered the 12X12 square hardcover? I am at such as loss as to what size I should be ordering.

The 12x12 is a fairly new option, but I think I'm going to stick with 11x13 because I think landscape works better with wide shots, of which we have many. To use them in a square you either have to crop off the sides or shrink them way down to fit.

I want to make a wedding album and I think I am going to go with blurb because the other sites I have found do not let you use your own fonts. I know, stupid reason, but I am OCD about fonts.

I don't think it's stupid!

Also, Carrie I really like the at home reception layouts you posted above. Is that your official album or did you make another one not using blurb?

I'm using Blurb, but I haven't finished our official album yet. Blurb just announced this week that they now accept PDF files, which opens up a whole new world of design possibilities (i.e., you can now design your book in any software you want, export it as a PDF and send it to Blurb to turn into a book), so I think there's a chance I'll actually finish our album before, like, Christmas!

If you are familiar with any kind of graphic design software, I would highly recommend doing it the PDF way because you can access all your own fonts and won't have any compatibility problems.

 

[Piggy and Bear]

I would highly recommend doing it the PDF way because you can access all your own fonts and won't have any compatibility problems.

I had forgotten about the fonts! That was the big downside to mypublisher, They have a few fonts only and this was frustrating at times. They also limited the size of the font.

DH is reading over my shoulder and his eyes have lit up at the PDF possibilities He's looking at Adobe Elements software online as I type .....

This could open up lots more possibilities for editting and creating albums

 

[acwinsett]

Blurb just announced this week that they now accept PDF files, which opens up a whole new world of design possibilities (i.e., you can now design your book in any software you want, export it as a PDF and send it to Blurb to turn into a book)

Oh, now THAT's awesome!!!!

 

[Sarah <3 Disney]

Just a quick note, MyPublisher is having a special where you can receive a free book if you order 2 or more (and are a new customer). Information is here:

http://www.mypublisher.com/associations/home241/index.php?assoc=home241

 

[livinlife25]

What size font did everyone use on the cover of their imagewrap?