Introducing Scrapbook Blogger & Starbucks Card Giveaway

We mom bloggers spend a lot of time and effort blogging. We record everything from first steps to family squabbles. Within the confines of our little blog spheres we are queens and we weave a tapestry about our lives for others to rejoice with as well as to commiserate with. Pictures, recipes, crafts, stories are all carefully placed leaving an indent in history. Blogs are the diaries of our lives.

Imagine my glee at stumbling across a site that turns your blog into a scrapbook. Seriously folks, it’s too cool for words. With Scrapbook Blogger you can easily turn your blog, photos and text, into a beautiful coffee table size, scrapbook. Simply follow the directions at the site and download your blog. It’s so easy, even a child could do it.

Scrapbook Blogger- Turn Your Blog into a Printed Scrapbook

I invited Ashley Cuttino, creator of Scrapbook Blogger, to visit my blog and tell us about her awesome and very useful site.

AnnMarie: Ashley, thanks so much for joining us today!

Ashley:

Thanks, I am very glad to be here to talk about Scrapbook Blogger! I hope all of your readers, who are bloggers, will take a look at our product. It is a new and innovative way to turn your blog into a printed scrapbook to keep forever!

AnnMarie: Tell us a little bit about YOU:

Ashley:

Well, I am the mother of two little girls. Grayson is 2 ½ and Anna Parker is 3 months old. I began blogging about my life in late 2005. A college friend sent me a link to her blog when I was pregnant. She had a baby and I found myself hooked on her blog. I read it every day and used it as a guide to my pregnancy and a way to look forward to what was to come. I started blogging when I was eight months pregnant and loved it! I found it to be a great way to express both the joys and frustrations of being a new mom and it was a great way to connect with other friends who read my blog and commented when I needed help. Plus, our extended families live several hours away and loved getting daily updates on the grandkids by checking out my blog. Feel free to check us out at
Ashleynewmom


AnnMarie: I visited your blog, it’s adorable! And you’re right, many of us use our blogs to keep family members who live far away updated on our lives. When I came across Scrapbook Blogger I was thrilled. How did you come up with the idea?

Ashley:

Well, after Grayson was born I realized that despite my best intentions to create a traditional scrapbook of her growth and development, I simply did not have the time or creative mo-jo required to get it all started. I tried…I bought multiple traditional scrapbooks and printed tons of pictures. The books are in the closet and the pictures are still in the box they were shipped to me in! I honestly own one pair of scissors and they are kitchen scissors. There is no glue in my house. Scrapbooking was clearly not going to be my thing!

But, being a new mom I felt guilty about not making my first child a scrapbook. Then it dawned on me that I had already created an amazing account of Grayson’s first few months…it was my blog. I usually posted 2-3 times a week with pictures and updates on what we were doing. It was all there and then some. I hunted on the Internet but could not find anywhere that would print just one or two copies of my blog with both words and pictures. Somewhere along the way I decided that if I wanted a printed copy of my blog then other mom’s probably would too. As I kept thinking about it, my vision grew into not only a printed hard copy version of my blog, but one with a fun, scrapbook-style. So, I talked my husband into the idea and we decided to go for it! And that’s how Scrapbook Blogger was born!

AnnMarie: I think that really fills a need that many of us bloggers have. Especially those of us who are, ahem, creatively challenged!

Ashley:

I could not agree more!! Like I said before, that’s really how this whole thing got started. I created Scrapbook Blogger because I wanted a scrapbook made from my blog, so I’m sure others feel the same way. We have had a great response and lots of interest in our product. I am yet to meet a mommy blogger who does not want a copy of her blog! Think about the time you spend blogging, documenting and sharing your family with others. Why not keep a copy for yourself, or make a wonderful gift for the grandparents?

Once my girls were born it became very important to me to preserve my memories of them for the future. My mother passed away very suddenly at the age of 50 before I was married or had any children. I would give anything to be able to read about my mom’s thoughts on motherhood and see the memories of my childhood. Everyday I have questions about motherhood that I would love to ask her. To have a scrapbook that had her thoughts and memories that I could look back on now would be priceless! Now with Scrapbook Blogger, I am giving that legacy to my own children. They will have their scrapbooks to see what they were like as children, and what I was like as their mother. It is all there for them to read about and remember. I know other moms out there will agree that preserving these memories for years to come is a gift that is priceless and something we’d all like to do for our kids!

AnnMarie: How does someone get started turning their blog into a scrapbook?

Ashley:

It is simple!

Simply log into Scrapbook Blogger at www.scrapbookblogger.com and follow the easy steps. Our program is essentially designed in Four Stages. First enter your book Title and Blog address, then enter the date range of the portion of your blog you want to print into a book.

Step 2, pick a default background to run throughout your book. Step 3, enter the Post Manager section. This section allows you to make large scale edits to your book. For example you can delete posts that may have been blog-worthy but not print material, merge small posts, or rearrange posts if you so desire.

Then you enter Step 4. This is the Book Editor section where most of your creative energy is used! The Scrapbook Blogger program places each post onto a pre-selected layout based on the number of words and photos in each post, but you can always alter the pre-selected layout if you wish. For example, I often post 5 or six photos on my blog, but when I print my book I will pick my favorite 3 or 4 for the printed book. This will often allow me to get a post onto one page instead of two pages, which makes the book shorter (less expensive) and sometimes allows the book to flow better.

This step lets you make several different types of edits that let you personalize your scrapbook to your taste. You can do things like make the left page be all text and the right page can be an all photo layout, or you can change the background of each individual page of the book. For example, I tend to use pale pinks and greens in the Spring and orange and red based backgrounds in the Fall. You can also change the location of pictures if you do not like how it was automatically formatted, upload new photos, or even change your blog post text if you want to! Our goal is to give the Scrapbook Blogger enough options that each scrapbook created is personal and unique, but not too many choices that it becomes difficult to create.

I suggest Scrapbook Bloggers pick a date range, such as a year, and try to make a 100 -150 page book. You can always go back and make multiple books of your blog with different date ranges. This way the editing process does not become overwhelming, and you have a year’s worth of memories wrapped up in one great scrapbook! People are often amazed with how many posts they have made. For example, in the three years I have been blogging I have almost 1000 posts. That book would be at least 1500 pages long and way too much to edit down. But, when I make yearly books it becomes a much simpler process.



AnnMarie: I hadn’t thought about how many times I blog (just don’t tell anyone!) Okay, so the blogger finishes editing their pages, what happens next?

Ashley:

Once you complete the book editor page you simply hit “print my book” and follow the check out procedure. Then the book is sent to our printer and you receive it in 7-10 days – sometimes less!

AnnMarie: One of the first things I noticed, aside from how easy the site is to use, was how affordable it is! Scrapbooking is NOT cheap!

Ashley:

Yes! We wanted to make our service affordable to the moms out there who are blogging. We are all busy raising our families and have lots of expenses associated with having little ones. Preserving your memories should not be one of those expenses. Our books are priced based on the number of pages you decide to put in your scrapbook and have printed. A book can hold up to 250 pages. Our customers tend to be most satisfied with books that are 100-150 pages. Our prices range from $30 for a 30 page minimum to $76.00 for the 250 page maximum.

AnnMarie: Where do you see Scrapbook Blogger heading in the future?

Ashley:

We hope to continue to expand the options for our books. We are currently working on additional layouts and backgrounds. In the very near future we will be adding theme specific backgrounds for each holiday, trips to the zoo, bubble baths, etc. For example, there will be a birthday background for your post about your child’s birthday party. We are also currently expanding our product to other non-mommy bloggers. For example, my sister is getting married in January. She has started a blog about her engagement and upcoming wedding. We are designing backgrounds that will work for her to have an engagement/ bridal book of her wedding blog. In addition, we will be adding choices for the color of the book covers. Currently, all of our covers are black with a peak through hole for one photo. We hope to expand to offer pink, blue, green and yellow cover options soon!

AnnMarie: Anything else you’d like to share with us today?

Ashley:

I have enjoyed the opportunity to chat with you about Scrapbook Blogger. We hope your readers will come to www.scrapbookblogger.com and check out our product and see what we have to offer. We know you will love having your blog made into a scrapbook that you and your family can cherish forever. You can also check out our blog about Scrapbook Blogger for more company information and helpful hints about making your Scrapbook Blogger book. The Scrapbook Blogger Blog is located at www.scrapbookblogger.blogspot.com.

Thanks for joining us Ashley.

I am thrilled to point all you blogger moms in the direction of Scrapbook Blogger. Aside from being a fabulous way to create a keepsake of your life, it’s affordable and so easy to use.

Because you stopped by today we have a contest for you

Leave me a comment and your name will be entered to win a $10.00 Starbucks card (US residents only, sorry). One name will be drawn on Sunday, May 18,2008.