I have planned for some time to make a photo book for BookBairn with photographs of all the members of her immediate family and, fortunately...

One of a Kind: A Personal Book

Monday, November 02, 2015 BookBairn 4 Comments

I have planned for some time to make a photo book for BookBairn with photographs of all the members of her immediate family and, fortunately, I recently received a message from love2read asking us to review our experience of creating a personalised book. I was delighted! Exactly what I was looking for. Our family doesn't live locally but we are fortunate that they visit often. Still, I thought it would be nice to have all the family photos in a book together. Also, BookBairn's Aunty has just moved to New York for the foreseeable future so it's great that she can see her whenever she wants in the pages of this book.


The process of creating the book was straightforward with lots of options and templates to choose from. As I said, I had planned a 'My Family' book for a while so I selected that template. However, there are plenty templates to choose from, varying from books for specific family members (gran, cousin, pets) to memory books for special events and celebrations (my year, my birthday, my Halloween). The book consists of ten main pages and we are fortunate that this suited the size of our family perfectly. Our main difficulty came when choosing which photos to use: the book is best suited to landscape photos, and if you're anything like us, lots of your photos are snapped on iPhones and therefore are primarily portrait. A wee photo-shoot later and we had our perfect shots! I could add the text that I wanted underneath easily meaning I could include each family members name under their pictures, adding to the longevity of the book. Hopefully, she will be able to recognise their names as she gets older. Our only real issue was when it came to creating the cover as the process automatically selects the first four pictures from the book so we had to do a bit of shuffling pages around as I didn't want to feature one set of grandparents on the cover and not the other. Not that they would have bothered particularly but it would have bothered me. A quick re-shuffle was easy and all done! Apart for taking some new photos, the process took less than half an hour. And even better, the book arrived in the post two days later. Brilliant service!


The quality of the photo-printing is excellent and even though we used iPhone photos the clarity and colour is superb. I had, initially, been concerned that the book was not a board book and therefore wouldn't be as durable but the thick glossy pages make it strong and light! The perfect combination for BookBairn to hold and play with herself!

Well, if you've been reading our previous posts, you'll know that BookBairn loves to read and loves books. But reading this for the first time was one of the best reading experiences that we've had so far. She, literally, squealed with excitement! As we turned each page she touched the photos and grinned in delight! I couldn't have expected a better reaction. She knew that this book was one of a kind and unique. She recognised the faces. Honestly, I cried with happiness. What a special book! BookBairn has begun to wriggle, squiggle and shuffle around the room and, despite having several toys to choose to play with, she picks up this book.  It may have been a coincidence but when she picked it up upside down she put her wee brain to work to turn it around so that the photos were the right way up. She talks to the pages. It's her favourite book at the moment. And it will always be a special book.


Love Mummy and BookBairn x

*DISCLAIMER* I was given our book for free for review purposes, however all words and opinions are my own.


4 comments:

  1. I love a good personalised book, so meaningful and great to keep looking back on. thanks for linking up with #readwithme

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  2. I love personalised books. Your little lady looks like she's enjoying it :)
    #readwithme

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  3. What a great idea for a personalised family book. Looking forward to letting BookBairn show me it, except, of course, one of the pages.

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  4. I can't wait to read this with BookBairn

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