It’s no secret that I love online photo book creators. As a busy mom I never find the time to make scrap books or print all our favorite photos and put them in albums and online photo book sites make putting the pictures in our hands a doable thing for me. Once a year I create a book for my boys, with our our favorite memories from the past year. They love looking at these books. Lately we’ve had a couple of really special family occasions that have each warranted their own book. So, when Viovio asked if I’d like to try their photo book creator I had to say yes!

I chose my grandparent’s 60th wedding anniversary as the theme for the book. My cousins and I had already pooled our photos in a Dropbox folder and they were just waiting to be used! Since this was my first time experimenting with Viovio I took some time to look around the site, check out the templates for the size book I wanted, and upload my photos before settling in to create my book.

I was really impressed with how easy and fast the image uploader was. I’ve used a lot of photo book creators and this was by far the fastest upload experience!  After uploading I chose a book size, then a template. They didn’t have anything specific to anniversaries, so at first I chose a wedding theme. Half way in I realized some of the pages had text on them that didn’t apply… like Bride and Father. At a 60 year anniversary party it’s not likely you’re going to have a photo of the bride and her father together. Oops.

So, I started over. I think that was the only thing I didn’t like… you can’t just change designs in the middle of the book creation. I guess it make sense that different designs have different layouts, but it bugged me a tad. I learned my lesson and looked more carefully at the other template designs before choosing one that suited the occasion. Since my images were already uploaded I didn’t have to do that part again and the rest of the book creation went smoothly.

I finished the page layouts, selected a cover type and added some text in a pretty font style then placed my order… one copy for me and one for my grandparents. Then I set up a public page that allows my family members to order their own copies if they’d like. I love that that option was available! Can you imagine how great that would be for sports teams, schools, etc? So neat!

In a couple of weeks my books arrived. I’m so tickled! They are high quality hardback books that turned out just like the preview on the site! The only ‘glitch’ is that a couple of the images corners overlay wrong, but I think that has more to do with the template I chose and the order in which I added the photos. I saw this in the preview and didn’t fix it, thinking it was a glitch in the system. Now I know that what prints is exactly what I see online so next time I should fix before printing!

I can’t wait to send one of these beautiful books to my grandparents. I know they’ll enjoy reliving those memories of having all their children, grand children and great grandson together, celebrating their love!

Viovio Photo Book Giveaway (CLOSED)

Viovio not only has the online book creator, they also have an iPad app that makes creating your photo books a breeze! I don’t have an iPad (shocker, I know) to try it on, but I’m guessing one of you might and I’m excited to give you a chance to try it with a $25 gift certificate!

Simply leave a comment on this post telling me what occasion you’d most like to make a photo book for! I’ll use random.org to draw a winner on Friday, Jan 18th and notify the winner via email!

 I was given a gift certificate to get some viovio books of my own. All opinions are mine!