Recommendations for a memory book supplier? 18 February 2015 at 3:32PM in Special occasions & other celebrations 5 replies 2.7K views

itm2

I'd like to put together a memory book for my wife's 50th birthday in a couple of months, and was wondering whether anyone could recommend a good place to create/order one? I've left the format of the content quite flexible (and am still waiting for most of the material to come back from friends and family), but I expect it'll contain mainly digital content - scanned photos/letters and emailed messages.

I've had a quick look at the Snapfish site and it looks OK but it's hard to know how nice it will be when it actually turns up, so I'd be keen to hear from anyone who has used something like this for a special occasion and has been happy with it.

TIA

ALou19

Hi there,

Whilst I couldn't recommend a maker, I didn't want to just read and run.

I'm thinking of creating something similar for my mums birthday this year but instead going to try be a little crafty and use a scrapbook I got in the Hobbycraft sale and fill it, like you said, with pics, poems, memories, letters. My plan is to also ask family members to contribute and compile into one big book.

I guess it depends how confident and crafty you feel to whether you would like to take something like this on but maybe there is someone's help you could enlist? The idea you have alone is really thoughtful but imagine being handcrafted...extra brownie points haha!

My plan is to gather all the things I plan to put in and just keep the deco on each page pretty simple. Maybe just a few embellishments which you can pick up pretty cheap if you look around and there are lots of sites you can look on for ideas.

The scrapbook I purchased is ...

http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/hobbycraft-craft-white-scrapbook-8-x-8-inches/566510-1002

Another big help is Pinterest! Some ace ideas on there so would recommend checking it out.

Here's another idea I love too which you may want to take a look at. 50 letters for 50 years! More info on that is this link...

http://diana212m.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/60-years-of-memories.html



Sorry again I don't have an online maker to recommend but hope this helps inspire you a little!

elsien

I made one for my mum's 70th but I can't remember who I used, which isn't much help. It may have been CeWe and it turned out well - mum was really pleased with it. I've used several different companies for various occasions. I found them a bit of a faff to start with -some are more user friendly than others (I think I struggled a bit with Jessops) but they all seem to fairly similar in allowing you to play with different layouts.

The one thing I wasn't aware of is that there's a fixed number of pages. i thought they'd just print the ones I'd used, but the blank ones were put in as well. Ok if you want to add to the book, but it did look a bit as if I'd got half way through and stopped. Just something to be aware of.

And there's generally vouchers and discount codes floating around as well for new customers. Which is why I've used a different company each time, not because I was unhappy with the quality.

itm2

Many thanks for the feedback. The original idea was indeed to do a scrapbook (as opposed to using an online tool), but so far all of the items I've received back have been in electronic form - emails, word documents, or scans of images. One way or another I would need to get these printed before including them in any book, so I figured it made more sense to simply build it electronically. It wouldn't have the same "feel" as a real scrapbook, but as I'm not the most "crafty" person that may not be such a bad thing! (and there isn't anyone I can think of that would have the time to devote to helping out with this).

Interesting point re. the fixed number of pages. When I looked at Snapfish it seemed to be able to expand the book to accommodate the required number of pages, but I'd better double-check that before I start.

elsien

Yes, they can all expand if needed. My problem was not having enough to fill the minimum number of pages, hence the blank ones at the end.

Tamster150

I have bought photo books from photobox, snapfish/truprint and bonusprint.

In terms of quality, there is not a great deal of difference between them all. Photobox probably has the edge, slightly nicer feel/shine to the paper, and although the programme is easy to use, it is quite sophisticated so you can get very professional results.

However I prefer using truprint/snapfish. I like the range of layouts, background styles (which you can mix and match) and clip art, photos are easy to crop and edit but the best thing is "the magic page" feature where you click and drag all the photos that you want to use on that particular page, then keep clicking till you get a layout you like. You can then swap pictures around easily.

Bonus print is my least favourite for ease of use, variety of backgrounds and quality but (a big BUT) they do amazing deals for 100, 50 and 25 page books at 75% off.

Register for email updates for all them, truprint have deals on all the time, photobox less so. I always have books in progress on truprint ready to buy when they have a good deal on. I don't get prints anymore, I always do photo books.

I personally prefer a4 or the square options, the A3 books are quite heavy to flick through. I also prefer the photo cover option, the linen ones have got a bit grubby from my kids over handling, whilst the others like new still!