Wednesday, December 27, 2006

The ULTIMATE Bloggy-Mama Gift

Look what my thoughtful father-in-law gave me for Christmas! It's a BLOOK! (my blog, printed & bound) How cool is that?
I purchased beautiful baby books while I was pregnant. They are totally empty on the top shelf of the nursery. Instead, I have 3 shoeboxes (one per child) with notes scribbled on index cards regarding milestones. There are also ultrasounds, birthday invitations and the rare photo that has actually been printed.

To console myself, I decided one day I would print out these entries and have them bound. Grandaddy had the same idea! He did a whole month manually (a true labor of love).

Turns out, there's a company working on a program to do this automatically.

What a TREASURE!!! Just wanted to pass it on!

10 comments:

Jennifer said...

INPUT FROM GRANDADDY RYLAND:
"I used viovio.com as they were the only one I could find that would take an Adobe PDF file as input

I started with Blurb.Com as they were recommended however I found it very limiting as I had to pick a photo layout for each page and then add text in remaining space. They are the one’s that say they will be able to import Blogspot.com in 2007. I emailed them last week as to when this would be available and they responded hopefully in the second quarter of 2007. They said they were “waiting for the Blogspot.Com format to stabilize” before they would be able to import.

I was happy with the quality at viovio. I did NOT substitute higher resolution photos for those on the blog pages. I did use higher resolution photos for the covers and my photo pages.

Once I got stated, it did not take too long to make the PDF file. The most time consuming part was moving each entry so they went from earliest date on first page to latest date on last page which is the opposite of the way the blog site lists them.

Even once you can automatically download web site, I think I will still prefer controlling my own layout with Adobe Acrobat."

Kim said...

What a wonderful gift! I would love to have my blog in a book just for us to enjoy,too. It really is a journal of our lives and my thoughts for a particular day in my life...I love the idea! Yours look so great!

I'm glad to know it is actually *do*able.

Beautiful!!!

Kim

Kellie said...

That is so cool! I would have burst into tears in the middle of all the wrapping paper. How wonderful!

That does make me think twice about what I put on my blog... would I want it sitting on the coffee table for all to see? =)

Tara said...

What a thoughtful father-in-law you have! I know what you mean about the beautiful empty baby books. My daughter has a reasonably completed one for her first year as well as most of her first year scrapbooked, but my poor little boys...the shoebox is about as far as I have gotten with them as well. I even have two beautiful scrapbooks made especially for them by our local scrapbooking Queen when they were born. All I had to do was journal and add pictures! Do you think I have done it? No. This, my friend, is why I have decided to start blogging!

Perri said...

What a great idea! I'm marking the spot and waiting for them to be able to do Blogger.

Now, I'll never be at a loss to tell people what I want and maybe I won't get so many socks for gifts - I'll gets months instead!

Alison said...

What a thoughtful and very creative gift!!!!

terrible speller said...

Oh, I gotta get one of these. Thanks for the babies come by plane link. I LOVED it!

Anonymous said...

I agree what a treasure and thoughtful gift.

Pace and Sarah said...

I'm getting caught up between doses of meds for Caiden--

What a wonderful gift (and father-in-law!!)! I just showed it to my husband, in hopes he'll get the overt hint for my birthday:)

Wendy said...

Great idea, what a nice gift!