You may not have noticed (in which case, where have you been!!) but I love taking photos and am what you could call trigger happy when it comes to taking pictures. Back in the days before children I used to create photo albums, collecting confetti, beach sand and anything else ‘sensory’ that went with the pictures and added it to the photo albums. Since having Ameli, I haven’t managed to put one album together. Life sure has changed.
Another thing that has changed is photo books. I don’t remember them being around as much, even three years ago.
CEWE Photobooks does photo books – no surprises there – from £5.99 and they really do have a lot of variety. Everything you could want from small 26 page booklets, right up to XXL (42x30cm) 130 page landscape photobooks. They offer hard covers, soft cover, faux leather, linen and premium linen covers, and normal or photo paper.
As with all these things, you have to download the CEWE software in order to make your photobook, and I’ll be honest and say that I found the software really complicated at first. As with all new software, it does take time! I probably spent about four hours one night trying to sort out pictures and then arrange them in the book. The next morning I had a different idea for how I wanted to do the book, and deleted it, starting from scratch. Having then ‘figured out’ how it all works, it took a lot less time, and I actually really like the way it came out (on screen, anyway.)
I’ve used similar software for other books but more specifically for calendars and I am really impressed by the software behind this system. It gives you so many options, it’s really quite something. You have so many font, layout and design options, you can easily spend hours just playing about!
I think my favourite thing about this software is the fact that as you add pages, and different materials and so on for the cover, there’s a little box in the corner that tells you how much your book is going to cost. I have on more than one occasion spend days working on a photo book, just to get to the ‘checkout’ stage and find the books is three times more than I could afford and I had to abandon it! So I really love that you can keep a check on it as you go.
The options are limitless. You can have up to 25 photos to a page, writing, no writing, back ground picture, pretty much anything you could possibly want.
Another brilliant thing about these photobooks – or at least putting them together – is that you can save your project as you’re going along. So if you were participating in Mamatography or another 365 (366) day project, you could upload you pictures regularly, so that at the end of the year your album is there, ready and waiting.
Once you’ve made and uploaded your photobook it will take between 4 and 12 days to arrive, depending on the product you choose – that being the case, I haven’t received mine yet, so I’ll update this post with info on quality once I do.
Update: 21/06
Our photobook arrived a few days ago and it is really beautiful. Even my husband took the time to sit down and look through it. It’s so lovely, I am considering doing one for my parents too. It is really gorgeous!
Competition
One reader can win a £30 voucher to create a photobook, calendar, photo prints, posters and canvases, greeting cards or photo gifts of your choice (thinking ahead for a birthday or Christmas? PERFECT!)
I am trialling Rafflecopter for a while as it should make the process of picking winners a lot easier and quicker for me! It may look imposing at first, but its actually really, really easy. More and more bloggers are using Rafflecopter, so it’s certainly worth giving it a shot.
To start, answer the question below by leaving a blog comment. You then click on Rafflecopter where it says +1 and you are entered in the competition! That will then open a new ‘page’ inside Raffecopter which will give you different ways of entering the competition.
Still not making sense? Watch this. And please let me know what you think? It makes my life easier, but I want to know that you’re happy too!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Winners will be announced here and on the Diary of a First Child Facebook Page. Please check these to find out who won.
Please read the competition rules.
You do not have to tweet or share this competition to enter, and doing so does not give you additional entries unless otherwise stated, but doing so helps ensure that I can keep bringing you competitions! You can subscribe to Diary of a First Child by RSS or to our competitions only RSS feed or email. You can also follow us on Facebook or on Twitter. We hope to see you back again soon!
