Being Published

While I'm thinking of things I've recently made, I thought I'd share about some books I made last month. For the past 3 years or so, I've put together a family yearbook after the end of each year. Each book is a collection of pictures and stories about what we did as a family that year. I've really enjoyed making them, but I haven't always enjoyed the website/program I used to put them together. This year I found a new company with better publishing software, which was free to download. I also found that I could do more than just make my traditional photo book, I could also make other types of books. For as little as $5, you can create and publish a book of stories, poems, recipes, you name it! (And you can publish and and actually sell your own books on their website too!) So I decided to have some fun with it. After I finished the daunting task of organizing a year's worth of photos--more than we've had any other year because of Ashlyn joining us--I set to work creating a book of stories for Emma. Dakota helped with a couple of the story lines, and Emma came up with one story on her own. I used pictures of Emma, her best friend Natalie, and Ashlyn to help tell the stories. I loved the finished product--a 40 page book, containing 4 stories with color photos. In fact, it was so successful, I decided to make a similar book for Natalie. Now the girls each have a book of stories in which they go on a search for a princess, pretend to be different people, and throw a party together. If you like to be creative or have ever had a thought of writing stories for yourself or your kids, check out http://www.blurb.com/.


(My pictures of the book pages didn't turn out the best, but you get the idea. The above picture is from the photo year book.)


(These two--above and below--are from Emma's book.)