It’s approaching last minute holiday shopping time. If you’re like me and save the hardest for last (in laws and parents, for example) but I have a great idea for you: publish a personalized book using Blurb.It’s totally customizable and affordable and you can even make a book of your family blog!

About Blurb

Blurb is a company and a community that believes passionately in the joy of books – reading them, making them, sharing them, and selling them. … So we put our minds together, and developed a creative publishing service simple and smart enough to make anyone an author – every blogger, cook, photographer, parent, traveler, poet, pet owner, marketer, everyone. (This means you.)

How Blurb Works

Making a Blurb book is pretty easy, and there are three basic steps to making your own book.

1. Download the Blurb Book Smart program. It’s pretty self explanatory and quick to download.
2. Add photos and artwork. Arrange your book and add text, captions and titles. I found the editing to be a little more difficult than other programs I’ve used, but it did work very well when I got the hang of it.
3. Order your book! I received my book very quickly – a matter of only a few days – but make sure you check holiday ordering deadlines.

Before you make a book, you have to decide what kind of book and Blurb has many options at varying price points and sizes in square, landscape and portrait layouts. You can make a softback, hardback with jacket cover or hardback with image wrap book.

My Blurb Book

First, I should mention that this review is not my first experience with Blurb. We received a softback book – of full page photos of Toddler Boy when he was young – as a gift and it is awesome. It’s held up very well and the print quality is top notch. It’s such a great keepsake and I think any new mama would love a quality book or great photos like it.

For this review, I had the opportunity to personalize a book and I opted for a 7 inch square hardback with image wrap. I actually personalized the book for my mom about our trip to Disney World. It turned out better than I imagined. It’s mostly photos, but I also added some text to describe and caption some of the photos. The book includes a title on the front cover and on the binding so you can identify it even when it’s on a bookshelf. I love that I had complete control over the content as you can pick from tons of layouts ranging from no photos to several photos on each page. It took a while to customize and get it the way I wanted, but the end result was worth the time.

To Buy or Not to Buy

To Buy… The finished product is awesome. I can speak for both the softback and the hardback books and the quality is fantastic. The process isn’t the easiest, but you do have total creative control once you figure it out. A book is the perfect gift for grandparents, or new parents – really anyone who loves photos.

Or Not to Buy… I don’t like that you have to download the program to make a book and the interface isn’t the easiest for editing the book.

Shop! Check out Blurb Gift Center for ideas. 7 inch square softback books are only $12.95. The hardcover image wrap book I personalized only $24.95 for up to 40 pages. Shop now and use the code BLURBJOY for 20% off any book you make until December 1.

The Fine Print: Thanks to Blurb for providing a sample product for the purposes of this review. The opinions expressed are my own and uninfluenced by receipt of product. Others may have a different experience.