meo my Shutterfly

This week I have been busy putting together a Shutterfly book for our new granddaughter. I love writing and assembling these books on-line then getting a proper hard cover book as a keepsake. I especially like writing personalized stories with our family in mind. It makes me so happy to record childhood memories in this way for our grandchildren.

The other cool thing about these stories is that I do not think of them in advance. This is the fourth book I've written since my grandson was born just over 3 years ago. Each book idea just "popped" into my head and was written and completed within a week. I love that they practically write themselves and produce such fun little treasures. 

I already talked about the making of Boyington Bear and Buddies - Book 3 in this post. It showcased a selection of Amigurumi I had made for our grandson. I wrote it as a children's storybook and really had fun with the whole process.

The first two books were called Mavid Logan Boyington (book 1) and Mavid Is (book 2). Book 1 was a labour of love for our new grandson. I wrote a long, rhyming story starting with the news of our daughter's pregnancy through the birth and first few weeks with her new baby. It told the story of how Mavid came to be. I loved writing this story going into great detail ensuring everything rhymed. I also enjoyed going through all our photos picking out just the right ones to illustrate the story. 

The first story also had a LOT of text since I wanted to include ALL the details surrounding the arrival of our daughter's first child and our much anticipated first grandchild. When I decided to create a book, I researched a few different websites and ended up choosing Shutterfly. It was a perfect choice providing a variety of options with plenty of flexibility for adding text. Just to compare, a standard photo book with Shutterfly is 20 pages but this book was 57 pages with many of the pages being just text. The text no longer displays on the shared link which is not a problem as very few people have the patience to read the whole thing anyway. Even so I am happy to have done it and wouldn't change a thing. 

I decided the rest of the books should be more photo focused.  I have kept the text relatively short but continue to incorporate rhyming. I love playing with words and rhyming is just so much fun.  I think the books are visually appealing and a great way to celebrate our growing family. 

This fourth book is called Evie Sweet Evie and is all about our new granddaughter and our love for her. The title describes her temperament perfectly. Although we live ~2,200 km away, I am completely happy to have two wonderful grandchildren. I'm sure my daughter and I can continue to combine our talents; her photography (see Sweet Maple Photography) and my writing to produce a whole series of personalized books for her children. I can hardly wait to see what other books we create. 

Until then I think I will get back to another one of my favourite creative outlets ... crochet. I am ready to start another bear and will be sure to take a photo to share when it is done.