Custom Daily Planners from Blurb

I’ve been a customer of Blurb, the custom photo book website for about four years now. I started out making my books with them in 2009, when I was looking for holiday gifts for my parents and in-laws. With family spread out, their photo books are a great way for distant family to watch how my two kids grew over the past year. Last year, they really pulled through with my last minute order.

This year, I was offered the chance to try making one of their daily planners, which would be great for me since I’m Mrs. Procrastination.

Since I’m going to be making my usual holiday book of the kids anyway, I decided to make myself a planner of my cakes and cupcakes, since I’ve always wanted something like this anyway.

To make a book with Blurb, you have to download their software BookSmart, which comes with set layouts to choose from. I’ve never really liked the way they do their covers, with text covering a photo, so I actually decided with this one to create a custom cover in Photoshop before uploading it. If there’s one thing that BookSmart needs, it’s the ability to resize and create collages.

As you can see by my cover, I featured three images rather than one, and I added a color strip for the title to go in. This turned out way better than my normal book covers do. A huge plus is that BookSmart lets you use your own fonts, so you can choose cutie pie fonts for stuff like this or kids books. I’m a big fan of that feature as I am a long-time font snob.

It took me almost a week to finish the planner, mostly because I chose to include little images in every page, but in the end I got it done with all the images I wanted included. You could probably make a planner pretty quick by just using the layouts that call for 1 large image each month. Once you preview the book and run a spellcheck, you go to “Order Book” and the software will then upload your files and then take you to the Blurb website for checkout. (you’ll need an account)

I bought the softcover planner because with the color printing option, the hardcovers were just too pricey for me ($24.95+). I submitted my book this morning and my planner should be here by December 10 with their standard shipping.

I looked at their site and they actually offer Instagram books too, which sounds like a great idea for those of you who take great shots with the app. As for myself, I’ll have to just stick with my camera photos. ^_^

This planner was provided to me by Blurb free of charge for review purposes. I was not financially compensated for writing this post. The opinions expressed above are my own.