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Photo Book Story

What can you do with a photo?

Gift Ideas Using a Photo

Written By: Darcy - Dec• 03•12

Looking for a great gift? How about a unique gift? Its not too late, but the clock is ticking. I love using a photo to make a gift. There are so many different ideas such as a photo book, a canvas work of art, photo skins for your cell phone and more! Here are some places to shop to find the perfect gift, just click and look around. I tried to find the best coupons for you!

Generally speaking you have until about December 16th to order your products. However, you may have to pay for shipping if you wait this long. If you go past December 16th, you will definitely have to pay extra for shipping to get your present there on time for Christmas. Be sure to check the website for their recommendations for Holiday shipping.

Picaboo

Picaboo

For my Picaboo fans, they are having many different sales right now. Picaboo makes wonderful photobooks and other photo gifts.

Here are their current sales:

Free Shipping!! Sale ends December 18th!

The Christmas deadline is coming up! In order to get your photo book you will need to pay extra for shipping. They have the dates listed on their website. Just look for Holiday Shipping Guidelines right on the main page of their site. Once you sign up you will also get more coupons in your email.

 

Shutterfly

Take 50% off hard cover photo books from Shutterfly.com for a limited time!

No, its not too late to make and order a photobook! Here are the dates to remember for Holiday shipping:

  • Standard Shipping cut-off is Monday, December 17th;
  • 2-Day Shipping cutoff is Tuesday, December 18th;
  • Next Day Shipping cutoff is Wednesday, December 19th

Blurb

It’s not too late to order the perfect holiday gift…a custom book from Blurb! Blurb is offering 25% off any book you create. Blurb books are easy to create and make a great holiday gift! Plus, with Blurb, you can now create a photo book in just one night by uploading your Instagram and Facebook images. Capture those special 2012 moments today and create a photo book that you can cherish for a lifetime.

Smilebox

How to send a Letter to Santa and get a Reply with Smilebox. This is so cute, you can upload your letter to Santa and your child will receive a reply back!! Smilebox is a fun site where you can upload videos to share with family and friends. They provide some great tools and effects to create some fun videos. They also have photobooks and other gifts.

PhotoCardsDirect.com

575149_PhotocardsDirect Logo - 88x31 Did you miss a good deal on Christmas cards? I found one here, Post-Cyberweek Deal! Get $10 Off orders $50 PLUS Free Shipping and Free E-Card at PhotoCardsDirect.com! Use code PCD10OFF50 at checkout. Valid through 12/9.

328931_($6 Payout) Save 62% on a 8.75x11 Hardcover Photobook 180x150PhotoBin

I can offer you a deal from PhotoBin, this is a really great price for a photo book! Create custom PhotoBin Photo Books to tell the story of your life, your family, your travels, your kids, your activities and sports. User-friendly software featuring dozens of layouts, templates and themes; online photo editing capabilities; affordable pricing; and superior customer service make PhotoBin Photo Books a great family keepsake and gift choice.

 Personalizationmall.com

PersonalizationMall.comThis is one of my favorite sites for personal unique christmas gifts. Here you can find several unique gifts and add your own photo too! So fun!!

I found a special discount code:

Use Code PMALL10 to get $10 Off Any Order of $50 or More

Here you can find personalized christmas ornaments, playing cards, photo collage tie, personalized photo skins for your cell phone, photo puzzles and more! Seriously, this is the place for the person who has everything because they don’t have this!

 PictureFrames.comPictureFrames.com

Turn your photos into a work of Art! These make great gifts!

Currently I am working on a project to put a family photo over the fire place from one of the pictures I have taken. So I am currently investigating different options. Of course when I place my order, I will blog about the results. In the meantime, Pictureframes is having a 10% off sales until 12/31!  AND, they are offering FREE SHIPPING on orders of $75+ ! Enter coupon: AFREE75. Offer valid 11/27/12-12/12/12. You can also save 30% on all-inclusive photo frames plus SAVE 25% OFF the NEW 5 or 7 Frame Gallery Wall Collage!!! Perfect for Christmas!

 

CanvasPop

Turn any picture into canvas with CanvasPop - even iPhone and Facebook pictures. It’s easy and fun. Try us out!

I have a 15% discount card to the first person requesting it! I also have a $100 dollar discount for their DNA art, first come first serve! Just send an email to darcy@photobookstory.com and I’ll give you the discount code! Once they are gone, its gone.

I love the idea of doing the kids photos on canvas for Grandma, or putting the family photos down the stairs, or over the fireplace. I just got done making a big collage of photos of the kids in action doing sports, boating, skiing etc…they love it!

 

Vivyx

Pro Quality Poster Printing - 20

You can print posters from digital prints (up to 36″ x 120″). They have a five star rating and people love them. They don’t have coupons because their prices are always very low.

A gift idea would be to print some posters for your kids rooms. If you take a picture of them playing football or soccer, you can make them look like a pro. Use a site like Pixlr to edit the photo for free and a some cool effects.

 

 

Posted in Adobe, What to do with a Photo , , | 1 Comment »

Cyber Monday and Black Friday Deals

Written By: Darcy - Nov• 21•12

Vendors are sending me a lot of information for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Here are the latest offers. These are short term and will only last this weekend. Happy Shopping!!

Shutterfly

You can use the code above for your Christmas cards or make photo books for Christmas gifts. These are really great prices! This offer is valid today until 11/28!

PhotoCardsDirect

Our Black Friday-Cyber Monday Offer is now live and will be good through November 30th! Be sure to let your visitors know about this great promotion since prices will not be this low again!
  • START DATE: Today!
  • END DATE: Friday, November 30th, 11:59 PM EST
  • PROMO CODE: HOLIDAY12
  • DESCRIPTION: Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deal! Get $20 Off orders $40 and more at PhotoCardsDirect.com. Plus, Free Shipping and Free E-Card with all orders! Use code HOLIDAY12 at checkout. Valid 11/21 through 11/30.

MyPublisher

MyPublisher, Inc.
Premium paper. Superior craftsmanship. Our attention to every detail. Each photo book MyPublisher creates is something your customers are guaranteed to love. And right now we’re offering them a chance to try MyPublisher for FREE! The Perfect Stocking Stuffer;
HURRY! Free photo book offer ends soon! We stand by the quality of our photo books and know that once they discover our photo books, they’ll want one to cherish and showcase every story and moment that’s worth publishing.

Picaboo – Cyber Monday

This deal is their Cyber Monday deal! Picaboo is one of my favorite places for photobooks.

They don’t often offer their books at 50% off, so this is a really great deal. They also make calendars and other cards.

Once you sign up they will send you more coupons via your email address.

Blurb – valid on Friday

FRIDAY through Monday, 11/26 create the perfect pesonalized gift and get 25% Off with Blurb when you use promo code HOLIDAYTHANKS. Blurb books are a great way to make thoughtful gifts for friends and family while letting you unleash your creativity. Also, don’t forget, with Blurb you can now create a photo book by uploading your Instagram and Facebook images. Don’t miss out on these great savings and create your Blurb booktoday!

Posted in Deals | No Comments »

Digitize Old Photos

Written By: Darcy - Nov• 19•12

There are three ways you can digitize your old photos. I did this for my grandmother in order to preserve and share her treasure.

1. Buy a scanner and scan each photo. Scan each photo at least at 300 dpi. Much more and performance degrades because the file is so large. My husband told me his copier at work will scan a photo and email it to him.

Scan Old Photos to Share Them

2. Use a (nice) digital camera to take a photo of the photograph. This really does work well, but you have to test this out first. Use natural light only, if you use a flash you will get a glare. The best days are overcast, cloudy days, or at noon. Find a spot where a lot of light comes into the room. Setup a tripod (not in the glare of the sun) as high as it will go and steady the camera pointing down at the floor. Use a black mat to put the photo on.  Set the camera to fine. Zoom in on the photo framing it appropriately. Take a couple of pictures and see how they turn out by viewing them on your computer. Make the necessary adjustments in the settings. I had friend who digitized all their old photos doing this, and it worked great.

3. There may be services in your area that will scan old photographs for a fee. I was able to get a super coupon for scanning services from Photo Bin for $49 you get $99 dollars worth of photo scanning!!

Posted in How To | 2 Comments »

Digital Scrapbooks

Written By: Darcy - Nov• 19•12

There are so many wonderful programs that allow you to create digital scrapbooks (these are scrapbooks on your computer that you print out when completed). If you read the article above, you may wonder about your printer’s ability to print an archival quality scrapbook. I am so excited to tell you that some publishers will allow you to send them your digital scrapbooks for printing. Currently, the easist one I recommend is Picaboo. You need to save your 8.5 X11 scrapbooks as a jpg file. In Picaboo, you can take any image and make it a background or a single full bleed page.

If you use Photoshop then Shutterfly has templates that you can download. They offer digital scrapbooks in many different book sizes and you can put your image on the outside of the book. They look beautiful. 

You can also make a digital scrapbook by designing scrapbook pages in Microsoft Powerpoint, then save each slide as a jpg image. Make sure the image is at least 300 dpi. Of course, Digital Scrapbook programs would be the best option to use.

Posted in How To | No Comments »

Printing Photos at Home vs Professionally

Written By: Darcy - Nov• 19•12

My cousin has done a lot of research on this topic. He has found that most home printers do not have inks that are archival quality. You must research your printers inks to ensure they are archival quality. If not, most of our beautiful books we have made from our home printers will eventually fade.

However, I feel (and hope) that if a page is printed on acid free paper, stored in acid free sheet protectors in an air conditioned (temperature controlled) house, protected from the sun, my pages “should” last a long time. But, I no longer printout my pages with my computer. Instead, I make Photo Books, or Scrapbooks with real photos.

my cousin loves to print out his pages. He has found that the Epson R800 (or newer models) has inks that are considered archival quality. An 8×10 page costs about $1.85 to print out plus about $1.00 for the acid free paper. He prints out his pages using Scrapbook Factory Deluxe and uses a thermal binder to make books. He loves it.

A Note about Photo Paper

Not all inks and papers are the same. Some inks and papers will last longer than others. Please see Wilhelm Imaging Research for complete information. They have published permanence ratings for 4X6 photos

 

Posted in How To | 1 Comment »
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