Baby books are one of those projects that tend to hang over our heads and haunt our dreams, turning what should be a beautiful trip down memory lane into a nagging incessant guilty drag on our psyche. Any free moment we have (of which new parents have so many) could be spent writing, cutting, pasting and arranging the first year of our child's life instead of, say, watching baseball until midnight. So when someone draws our attention to a book that is not only complete but clever and beautiful to boot, we are happy to share and more than a little awestruck.
Hanna of Hanna's Life is Cool used Creative Memories to create a truly beautiful record of her daughter's first year of life. An illustrator and digital artist by trade, Hanna's artistic eye is evident in the photos and overall design of the book. The way each month starts out with a full-page photo and a Wordle collage is especially appealing.
Hanna admittedly feels 'pretty good' to have finished it just sixteen months into her daughter's life. We admittedly feel both inspired by her work and chagrined at the state of our own journals and photos.
Thanks for sharing and providing us all with a bit of motivation, Hanna! Readers, Hanna talks about the book on her own blog here and you can view her online portfolio of stunning work atHanna Sandvig.com where you can also find a link to her Etsy shop, Leaflette
(Images by Hanna Sandvig)
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Love it!!
I'm proud that I got my daughters books done in a reasonable amount of time too. She was a May '09 baby and I did May '09 - Oct '09 for book #1, and then Nov '09 - Dec '10 for book #2, and I plan on doing a book a year after this. But now that I'm expecting baby #2 I love the ideas that Hanna incorporated, I'm definitely taking notes.
Love this!
And Hanna's art is fabulous - I love her illustrations. What a talent!
This is gorgeous. I am totally doing this for my baby's first year - which conveniently will be near Christmas. These will be beautiful gifts for grandmas.
Wow! This is gorgeous! I wasn't planning on doing a book but now I want to! Totally inspired...love the wordles
I just got an e-mail that MyPublisher released new software to make this all easier too! :) Thought I'd pass the info along!
Blurb is the best (on quality and price) if you want more than 20 pages in your book. The software is also easy to manage.
Hi, I just wanted to pop in and say that while there are cheaper ways to make a book (Blurb, shutterfly) I've not been at all happy with the print quality. This was a very special book for me and I wanted it to be perfect, which is why I went with Creative Memories. I also used their program (which is not free) because I think it's fantastic. I'm an artist and graphic designer, so I'm rather particular about these things.
So yeah, I didn't pick the cheapest route, but this book was worth it to me. That said, I'll probably try out Picaboo for my next book, if I'm not so concerned about it (like for a vacation).
Thanks for the love!
How did you get the wordle at a high enough resolution? When I did it once for another book the only downloadable size was pixelly at 8x12. Did you use a special site or type it up yourself!
Hi Hanna! This book looks fantastic- your daughter will love looking at it as she gets older. My question for you is: What kind of preparation did you do for this book? Did you map the book out before your daughter was born and then record notes in a journal? I have not been able to find a baby book that I like and would love to do something like this, but want to make sure I'm thinking about all of the prep that would need to go into it! Thanks!
Tasmin - I used the print button, but then told my computer to save it as a PDF in the print menu, then I opened it in photoshop and resaved it as a high resolution jpg. A roundabout method, but it works.
BusterBluth - I didn't preplan at all really, I just let the photos I had dictate the layout. Some months had a lot more pages then others. I kept (and still keep) a monthly journal in point form in a word document of things I want to remember, so I just pulled from that for the journaling in the book. Also I'm crazy about keeping my photos organized on the computer, so that helped a lot.
How did you get the Wordle uploaded as a photo file to use in the photo book?