Monday Giveaway: Blurb Bookmaking Gift Certificates

by

THE PRIZE

blurb blog baby book canvas

Two lucky readers will each win a Blurb bookmaking gift certificate for $36.95, enough to get you a whole lot of pages in any of their selection of sizes. Yippee!

MY REVIEW

I am thrilled to announce this giveaway because I just finished my own Blurb book and I can’t wait to click “PUBLISH” and get it in the mail! I decided at the end of last year to focus on blogging instead of scrapbooking all of my pictures and our daily lives because I was falling further and further behind. At this stage in my life, blogging is much more practical than scrapbooking and preserving our stories and memories is more important than using pretty paper and fun embellishments. Blurb is my printing solution!

Surf Style canvas

So what is Blurb?

Blurb (www.blurb.com) is a creative publishing platform that enables anyone to design, publish, share, and sell affordable, bookstore-quality books. Download Blurb’s free book design software, BookSmart, to design your masterpiece. The minimum order is 1 book, and you can expect to receive your book within 7-10 days of ordering it. {from Blurb.com}

What this doesn’t tell you is that books are available in 5 sizes and begin at $4.95, that there are video tutorials to help you get started, or that you can “Slurp” your blog to the free software for the easiest transformation from blog to book possible.

When you first start in the software, you choose which blog(s) you want to slurp (Typepad, Blogger, WordPress, and more) and then which posts from that blog, and it automatically uploads all your titles, photos, text, comments, and date stamp into the software. From there you can mix and match and swap and play until you’re totally satisfied.

Besides slurping, my other favorite thing is how customizable each template is. They have dozens of preset text and photo templates for you to use with all different numbers of photos and placements, but you can also edit their templates or create your own to make things look just exactly how you want them to. I edited quite a bit to make the photos as big as possible on the page and to fit as much in as possible.

The whole process was easy to learn and so fun to do! And of course, Blurb is not just for blog books, but that’s the most enticing application for me…

Here are 3 of my favorite layouts. Click on the image to view larger and see what the software looks like.

blurb blog book

blurb blog book

blurb blog book

The program is intuitive and you’ll have it down in no time. (FYI,when you make your Blurb book, make sure you check the “Display Trim Guidelines” box so nothing important gets chopped off!)

This is the scrapbooking of my future. I have been able to record so much more of my family’s life blogging than I ever did scrapbooking, and I have this easy and affordable way to print it nicely.

A standard portrait size book will fit so much nicer on my bookshelf than those enormous scrapbooks do also…

The benefits in favor of printing a blog book are obvious right now – with all the money I spend printing pictures and on supplies, this is a less expensive option also.

I can’t wait to get mine in the mail and share it with my family. Thanks Blurb!

GIVEAWAY RULES

  • Visit Blurb.com
  • Come back here and tell me what kind of book you would make before midnight Friday, March 5.
  • A winner will be selected and announced at the top of this post on Monday.
  • Only one comment per person unless you earn extra entries.
  • Giveaway open only to residents of the continental United States…sorry.
  • Winners must email me to claim their prize within 5 days.

EARN EXTRA ENTRIES

You may earn up to 25 entries by blogging about this contest and including certain links – click here to read more about earning these entries.

You may earn 1 extra entry each for doing the following (make a separate comment for each thing you do):

GOOD LUCK and THANKS!

{This product was provided to Vanilla Joy for review purposes.}
Blurb (www.blurb.com) is a creative publishing platform that enables anyone to design, publish, share, and sell affordable, bookstore-quality books. Download Blurb’s free book design software, BookSmart, to design your masterpiece. The minimum order is 1 book, and you can expect to receive your book within 7-10 days of ordering it.

145 thoughts on “Monday Giveaway: Blurb Bookmaking Gift Certificates”

  1. I would make the 7×7 book. I have already done 2 and I need to finish up 2009 and print it. This would be a wonderful motivation to get me to finish it!

    Reply

  8. I am working (slowly) on turning our blog from last year into a book with blurb. I like the 8×10 size because it allows you to see the pictures more clearly, but of course that makes it more expensive, as well. I would love the gift certificate!

    Reply

  18. I would make a large landscape blog book. I have made one and have 3 more to do…I LOVE this company and am so pleased with the final product I received it around valentines day..it can hold a ton of photos! For one year of my blog book it has over 1600 pictures, seriously! I love it
    thanks for such a great giveaway!

    Reply

  19. I would like to make a photo/geneology-family history picture book with my mom.We visit my parents each summer in NC and this would be a great activity she and I can do together. We have tons and tons of old family photos from my great great relatives and this would be a better way to preserve them so my kids can learn about their family history as well.

    Reply

  29. I would make a scrapbook of my 3rd childs first 2 years. I have heard amazing things about this company and would love to try it out…I may even have to make a recipe book-oh the possibilities!!

    Reply

  42. I would make the standard landscape. I want to work on one for my little boy, and would like to make one for the whole family.

    Reply

  69. I would LOVE a blurb book! I blog so much that it was going to be pretty expensive. So winning a book is right up my ally! I would make a blog book. It is my version of our family scrapbook and would love to have it in print!

    Reply

  78. I have been wanting to print my blog for a while now! This would be perfect! I think I would go with the “standard landscape” book. Thanks!

    Reply

  81. I would make the blog book. I have been wanting to do this for my family to give as Christmas presents! Now you really have me motivated!!!

    Reply

  91. I would make an 8x 10 book out of my blog from the last couple of years. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, so the gift certificate would be great to get me motivated to make a book!

    Reply

  92. I LOVE blurb.com! I’m currently using them to make my blog book for 2009 and I really like the new layout editing feature. I’ve also used blurb to make memory books for my husband and best friend. For each of their 30th birthdays I collected 30 memories from 30 different people and published them in a book with pictures and all that. They LOVED the books.
    Thanks for the giveaway! (…..pick me!)

    Reply

  98. I would make a standard landscape blog book. I’ve been wanting to make one but haven’t made the time for it yet. This would be wonderful!

    Reply

  113. I would love to make a book for my parents for their 50th anniversary chronicling their life together thus far. Very cool.

    Reply

  134. I would make a photo book definitely but I’m keeping it in mind for a cookbook too. Great site, i’ve never heard of them, but the books look great. I’m bookmarking this one for future use. Thanks

    Reply

  135. I would make a book(s) of my personal blog for 2008 and 2009! I started using Blurb and have made yearly books, but for while they weren’t supporting Typepad so I’m behind. I had contacted them and they told me they were working on it. I’m so glad to hear I can use Book Smart again!

    Reply

Leave a Comment