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| one of the recipes in my Shutterfly photo book: Lemon-Blueberry Muffins |
One Christmas, many, many years ago (way back when everyone shot film - remember that?), I had wanted to make a recipe book for my sister as a Christmas gift.
Of course, I wanted the recipe book to have photos, and with my usual poor holiday planning leaving just a few weeks until the big day, that meant quickly making the food, shooting photos, having those photos developed, scanning them, creating a layout in Photoshop, and then finding a way to print and bind the book that wasn't going to be cheesy.
I know that this will shock you, but despite my best intentions, no homemade recipe book did my sister receive.
A few weeks ago, when the gang at Shutterfly asked me if I'd be interested in creating a photo book, my immediate response was "yes". An easy way to make a gift book that I could be proud of? Ahhhh, yeah. Please, sign me up.
Thankfully, with just a little bit of organization before getting started (rather than the photo shoot/developing(!)/scanning/designing my own layout/finding a printer/binding a book), creating the book was as easy as pie (pun intended).
And I am so smitten with the book and process that I've been forcing friends to look at it ("Look! Isn't it cool?!") whenever I have a chance.
Even with the forced viewings, they've all seemed impressed (with the coolness of the feature, maybe not necessarily my book).
Given my obsessive nature, I've already started plotting out a book for my niece's first birthday, and - don't tell JR, okay? - definitely a wedding album for our anniversary. If I can wait that long. If not, well, then, Valentine's Day, I am kicking your gift-giving batooty.
While regaling my friends with tales of photo book dominance, my friend Kerri countered that she had already made a Shutterfly book of her trip to Peru, which was at least as cool as my recipe book. Okay, fine, then. I'll have to add an Italy photo book to my project list to assuage my Peru photo book envy.
You can see the potential for year-round photo book creation, I'm sure, though this is a great time to make your book of favorite holiday recipes, or a recap of what the family has been up to over the past year, or a holiday archives yearbook (I really wish my mother would stop showing that one photo of my sister, brothers, and me in front of the tree when my hair was cut like Joan Jett's to conveniently expose forehead acne, while wearing a preciously girly smocked-front Christmas-print nightgown. Not pretty. Not pretty at all. At least if she made a photo book, I could skip by that page.).
If you're making a photo book, or just now thinking, "hey! I'd like to make a photo book!", Shutterfly has generously offered to provide an 8-by-8 inch photo book to one lucky, creative, book-making winner here.
Each of the steps below is worth 1 entry:
2. Tweet "I want to win a free @Shutterfly photo book from @poorgirlgourmet http://bit.ly/tZBiUs". Once you've tweeted, please leave a comment here to let me know that you've tweeted.
3. Follow @Shutterfly and @poorgirlgourmet on Twitter and leave a comment here to let me know you've followed.
When commenting, please be sure to leave contact information so I can be in touch if you win.
The winner will be determined through a random drawing, which will be held on Wednesday, December 7th. This still leaves enough time to finish up your book by the end of the weekend of the 10th and 11th, get it ordered, and ship it out just in the nick of time for the holiday. (I also noticed that Shutterfly is giving free shipping on orders over $50 with the code SHIP50, double-check when you log in on Shutterfly to be sure. The discount code is in red in the upper right side of the screen.)
Entries will close on Tuesday, December 6th at midnight EST, and the winner will be announced on Wednesday, December 7th by noon EST.
In order to collect the prize, the winner will need a Shutterfly account, and will need to provide the email address associated with their Shutterfly account.
Fine Print: Shutterfly provided me with a free photo book, as well as with the giveaway prize. All opinions here are my own (shocker), and I did not receive any additional compensation for this post.
