Quiet Book Template

Do you guys remember when I posted all the pictures of the quiet book I made? It was a really long time ago, but it remains one of my most popular posts. 

People especially like the Mr. Potato Head quiet book page and accessories:

Well, I've been asked several times if I made a template as I went along. I finally made one this last week and uploaded it so anyone can use it.  And here it is!

To download the free Quiet Book template, click here or on the picture:

Here's what all the different pages look like (you can click on any of them to download the template):

So there you go! Enjoy!

AdoramaPix Photo Book Review

Hi everyone! As I've mentioned several times before on the blog, I am a huge fan of photo books. I love being able to preserve memories in such a fun way. I love the feeling of getting pictures off of my hard drive and into a real, substantial, hand-held book. I love getting them in the mail and cracking them open for the first time, and I love pulling them off of my shelf time and time again.

I decided that I'm going to review the different companies I've used (Shutterfly, MyPublisher, AdoramaPix, and Blurb) and the different kinds of products I've made (photo books, greeting cards, and calendars).

I started last week with my Shutterfly Calendar Review, and today I want to show you the photo book I recently made with AdoramaPix. It was also a Christmas gift, one for my sister and her husband of their engagement photos.

As I've mentioned before, I've made most of my photo books with Shutterfly. I was excited to branch out and try a new company with AdoramaPix. They're different from Shutterfly in that they use real photo paper for their pages (resulting in very nice pictures and really thick, sturdy pages) and they sell only layflat photo books. (A layflat book is just that - a book that lays flat when open. There's no "page curl" in the middle of the book. (This picture illustrates it nicely.)) So, here's what I thought of AdoramaPix!

Cover:

I really liked the cover. It was very thick and sturdy and had a cool metallic sheen to it.

Front end pages:

A lot of the different reviews of AdoramaPix that I read said that there were no end pages in the photobooks, and that if you wanted endpages you'd have to leave a blank spread. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I opened up the book and there were nice black end pages in both the front and back of the book. They must have changed it at some point due to demand. So, to repeat: you do not have to leave any blank spreads to get end pages in an AdoramaPix photobook. The end pages are already there.

Here's one of the spreads, and a different view of the layflat pages:

Notice that there's no gutter; the pages (and pictures) are continuous. This allows you to do some really cool, unique spreads with pictures stretching over both pages.

Another spread:

Here's an up-close shot of the layflat pages. AdoramaPix recommends not putting something important like a person's face in the fold, and I can see why. I probably wouldn't do it again, although it's really not too distracting:

 

Here's a couple of shots that illustrate how thick the pages are:

This page is standing up on its own. It's so thick that it can just balance there. That's pretty impressive!

Here's a comparison of Shutterfly page thickness (on the left) and AdoramaPix page thickness (on the right):

Another view of how flat the book lays:

Another spread:

Back end pages:

Notice that there are fingerprints on the left page:

I've never had Shutterfly pages pick up or show fingerprints, but as AdoramaPix is real photo paper it is going to pick up fingerprints, especially on darker pages. So, expect that, and handle pages carefully.

And finally, the back cover:

A Shutterfly book on the left, with the AdoramaPix book on the right:

I like that there's no bar code on the AdoramaPix back cover.

Here's a comparison shot of a Shutterfly book (on top) and the AdoramaPix book (on bottom:

You can really see how thick the AdoramaPix book is here. That's a standard 8x8 twenty-page Shutterfly book on top, while the AdoramaPix book has only fourteen pages and is still a lot thicker than the Shutterfly book.


So:

AdoramaPix

Website: www.adoramapix.com

Book stats: 8"x8", 14 pages
Software: Very good, very easy to use. They have good layouts to choose from, and the layouts are also fully customizable.
Paper quality: Top notch. The pages were extremely thick and sturdy, and had a nice sheen to them. They also had a kind of texture to them, though, which seemed to blur fine picture detail.
Print quality: Really good, although some of the detail of the pictures was lost in the sheen and texture of the page. The pictures were also darker than they appear on my computer screen; if I were to make another book with AdoramaPix, I would brighten the images before putting them in the photo book.
Cover quality: Again, really good. The cover was very thick and had a cool metallic sheen. Again, though, some of the photo detail was lost in the texture and the sheen.
Prices: Much higher than some other companies, and AdoramaPix runs fewer deals. A 14-page 8"x8"AdoramaPix book (without shipping) costs $25.95, a 26-page 8"x8" book (without shipping) costs $41.95. I bought the 14-page 8"x8" book on sale for $14.95. By comparison, a 20-page 8"x8" Shutterfly book costs $29.99 without shipping, and they very often have sales where you can get anywhere from 30-50% off.

Overall thoughts: The book was obviously high quality. The thick cover and pages with the sheen and the real photo paper look nice. However, I did wish that the pictures looked a bit sharper - fine picture details were lost in the texture of the page. I was considering making my wedding photo album with AdoramaPix, but for this reason, I think I'll make it with another company. I really want my wedding pictures to look nice and crisp. But, this book was very nice and made an excellent gift.

Another imporant side note: Because of the way they bind their layflat pages, AdoramaPix offers very specific page counts in their photo books. For example, in the 8"x8" size you can choose 14 pages, 26 pages, 38 pages, 50 pages, or 76 pages - but nothing in between. That's another reason I'm going to do my wedding photo album with a different company; although AdoramaPix would lend a nice gravitas to the book, I really want to use more pictures than I can fit in 76 pages.

And that's what I thought of AdoramaPix!

To check out more of my photo book reviews, check out these posts:

Shutterfly Photobook Review
Shutterfly Premium Leather Layflat Photo Book Review
Shutterfly Calendar Review 
York Photo Photo Book Review
MyPublisher Photo Book Review 
Collage.com Photo Book Review
Photo Book Comparisons

Shutterfly Calendar Review

While wondering what I should get for my mom, stepdad, and little sister this last Christmas, I tried to think of what they would like and what they would actually use. I pictured their house in my head, and I could see their kitchen/dining room (where they spend a lot of time). Prominently displayed on the wall in that room is their big corkboard, where they pin announcements and cards, all centered around their calendar.

Since I love giving photo gifts, my first thought was to make them a personalized calendar. :) I saw a couple deals from MyPublisher and Shutterfly going on, and I decided to make one through Shutterfly since that's my go-to photo site.

I was impressed with the software; the calendar was very easy to put together. It was easy to figure out how to do everything I wanted, and it didn't take very long once I had chosen the pictures I wanted. I chose the Shutterfly theme "Happy Days."

Here's the cover and all the pages:

Here's the photo quality of the cover:

And here are some of the inside pages. I love that you can put any text on any day, and add photos:

I also like the cute graphics:

The calendar is spiral-bound. The binding seems really good and sturdy:

So that's my first Shutterfly Calendar! It was fun, easy, and I like the finished result. And (most importantly) it was a hit with my family! :)

Book Review - The Kane Chronicles

I'm behind again. I've been meaning to write this post every since I wrote this post back in August, because I finished these books about the same time. But then we moved, and um, other stuff happened (Okay, have you ever seen Julian Smith's video "Pre-blessed Food?" It's super funny, and kind of a light-hearted commentary on how busy we all think we are. At one point, this one guy is explaining how busy he is and says, "We've always prayed religiously before eating. But we got so busy with work and {and here he waves his hands all funny} watching TV." Anyway, Jason and I quote that all the time. And that's how I feel right now when I'm making excuses to you. I've been so busy with work and {waving my hands all funny} watching TV...)

*Cough* Anyway! I read these books!

They're great! This is the Kane Chronicles series. The first book is the Red Pyramid, followed by The Throne of Fire, and finished with The Serpent's Shadow. They're by Rick Riordan, the same author who wrote the Percy Jackson series (for which you can find my review here). And where those books deal with the Greek gods, these books deal with the Egyptian ones.

I have to admit that I was less into the first book than I was into the Percy Jackson series. Don't get me wrong; it was still a great book, especially compared with most of them out there. Maybe I was just still too attached to the Greek gods, and missed them? But the second book drew me in a lot more, and I thought the third book was great. So, in summary = great series. Pick it up if you're looking for something fun.

The one criticism I have for this series is that it felt like some scenes were missing. For example, the second book starts off with the main characters doing something because - and this they tell you, you don't actually see it happen - another character showed up and gave them instructions to do it. And I get that Rick Riordan wants to start in on an action scene, but the whole first half of the book I kept feeling like I was missing something - that scene where the character gave them instructions. It just would have put the book on a more solid foundation, made me feel more settled and less like I was forgetting something, if that scene was there. Both the second and third book have a few of these missing scenes, that I just wish were there and would make me feel better if I could just read them. Anyway, it's not a big deal, but that is one thing I would have changed about the books.

Another side note: I love the way that Rick Riordan deals with race in all of his books that I've read. He has tons of characters of different races, and doesn't make a big deal about it. And when I mean a ton, I mean that probably at least half of the main characters are different races. It's a nice change.

Again, this was a fun series to read and I think you'd like it if you like fantasy/action/adventure books in general. Definitely check them out. :)

No way!

Jason and I went to Costco last night to stock up on formula for Ellie. (It is so cheap there, by the way. Literally half the price of the stuff at the grocery store. If you use formula, you might want to look into it.)

After we got the stuff that we needed, we wandered into the book section, and I found this!

This Son by Lois Lowry, a 4th and final book to The Giver series

 .
Did you guys know that there was going to be a last book to this series? I DIDN'T! (I'M SHOUTING BECAUSE I'M SO SURPRISED AND EXCITED!) I thought she finished with this series years ago! I thought Messenger was the last book! And THERE'S ANOTHER ONE!

Plan: hatched. Find way to read this book.

Only the beginning

 Two Fridays ago I read Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis. It was a good, albeit kind of "different," book. It's the first in a series of three, and I'm reserving my final judgement until after I've finished all of them, but I definitely liked it.

I won't go much into the plot, other than to say that a totally normal guy ends up having the following conversation with his seal/otter-like alien friend. They are talking about happiness and memory, and the seal/otter says (and this is one of my new favorite passages ever, in any book I've ever read): 

"A pleasure is only fully grown when it is remembered. You are speaking...as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then -- that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it."

Stop and think about that for a moment. Read it again maybe, thinking about each line.


I love it.

He goes on to say this:

"How could we endure to live if we were always crying for one day or one ear to come back - if we did not know that every day in life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these are that day?"

This whole week, that line has been playing over and over again in my head. Every time I've had an especially happy moment, where Baby has been laughing and I'm just feeling joy in my heart, I keep thinking, "Every day is this day." And every time I've thought of a past time that I was especially happy, the same thought comes to me. Remember this post that I wrote just a little while ago? Those times. This day is those days as well.

It's just a super interesting thought and one that I really wanted to share with you. It honestly has increased my happiness as I've been thinking about it ever since I read the book.

If you like C.S. Lewis, I would recommend checking this book out. And I'll give you an update on what I thought of the series once I've finished the other two. :)


(Big side note: The cover of this book (at least on our copy) was totally, totally wrong for it.

The copy of the book that we have is old; it was published in 1965 and I honestly don't think whoever chose the cover for the book had even read it. "It's a space book!" they said. "We need to give it a space cover!" And then they went and found some generic sci-fi drawing on somebody's desk a couple of cubicles over and put it on this book.

This is the cover of our copy:

And here is the cover of a copy that I think suits the book much, much better:

Anyway, I feel better now that we've cleared all that up.)