Wednesday, July 29, 2009

making a memory book ♥

What do you do with the hundreds or thousands of photo's in your shoe box or hard drive?

it's a fun problem to have, organizing all those precious pictures, if you have this simple and easy application on your computer. Oh, you probably already know about these photo book maker places, but if not, i'd like to share the one i use, and LOVE!

It's called My Publisher. You can download the (free) bookmaker, it only takes minutes and then start on your book. I am telling you about this place for two reasons, first because if I can do it, anybody can and if you decide to make your own photo book you won't have to make the BIG mistake i did the first time i used it. I didn't know to click save. I found out the hard way and now i know and i'm telling everyone, click save all the time and you will be fine! whew!



There are so many options, this book above is the small paper edition. The price includes 20 pages, but you can keep adding pages for a small price. For this book i chose to write descriptions.


It is called the Paper Back Pocket Book. And it's only 12.95 for 20 pages and up to 240 photos!


Can you see what a good time we had at our annual Girlfriends Getaway? I made an extra for a gift and then the best part is you can send the link to everyone and they can order their own after they view it online!



These are the called the Hard Cover Classics. They come with an optional book jacket which you get to design. Did i say how much fun this is?? This next book is the Classic with the Linen Cover, see it in the top right of the photo above?

I think this is a good choice for a wedding album, which is what this is. Our wedding, ta da!

For this one I didn't want too many words and I picked a creamy white for the background. Very elegant, no? :)

The Classic Hardcover with Linen is about thirty five dollars, with each additional page costing .99 cents. This book was a liiiitle more than that, but for good reason, there were a lot of photos! It turned out beautifully and we were able to order more for our parents and share with out of town friends and family to view online.




Next is the honeymoon book! This one has a book jacket, with a new option to personalize the spine along with your photo.





Do you see how it's made? you choose your book size and style. Then you choose the layout, the font, and even the size and number of photos per page. The application's are updated all the time, which makes it fun to look forward to the next improvement. This book allowed for full bleed photos. Like the one above where my new husband and I are luxuriating in the warm crystal clear water of the South Pacific....sigh....


The following year, My Publisher made it possible to do even more on the cover. Here is our book of a family trip we took and I could write on the inside flaps,


Can you see? it's hard to take a good photo of the paper, it's heavy with a high shine, so nice.


This book's style is called The Storyteller. And that's just what I wanted. I took my journal and copied much of it into this one along with the photo's. I made a copy for each of my kids to have, so they can show their kids how they survived a 40 metre drop while white water rafting the Kaituna River (that is my family up there) oh dear...


...see them at the top of that giant sand dune? and see one rolling down? on purpose. :)


My kids have no interest in my journals, at least not at this point in their lives, but I think they'll appreciate my words in their books someday...








The new cover design feature allows you to add a photo and words to the back also. I couldn't get good enough photos to really show how nice these books really are. Making them is a lot of fun, there are really no mistakes you can make because with a click here or there you can change anything. Once you are done and happy with your masterpiece you click preview and then purchase. It might take a while, maybe an hour to upload your book, depending how fast your Internet speed is. Once it's uploaded you'll get an email with a link to view it online. And you can send it to who ever you like. Then in about a week, maybe two, you'll receive your new book!

I think your going to love it.



p.s. if you click on the above photo it should take you to the My Publisher site. They are offering a special at the moment for a free book, good through August 10th i think. That's enough time to make your own, if you like.
Have fun!


♥ lori

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Ngiyabonga

Long, lazy, healing (thank you! for prayers, wishes, energy) summer days spent at home have me daydreaming of Africa and looking at my three thousand and something images,
here is the last (promise) of my posts, I hope you will enjoy and that the photos don't take too long to download.....


























































Ngiyabonga = Thank you


It's been my great pleasure to share our epic journey to Africa with all of you, Thank you for coming along, reading, commenting and enjoying. Really. I think I went over the number of posts I intended to do this in, but it was so hard to choose what to show (everything!) then I really would have had to have a separate blog. But, don't worry, not going to show everything, this is it, i'll leave with a saying I love,

Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer~
good heh?


love, lori