Lulu.com Custom Photo Books

Making gifts personal is a special and important part of Christmas. When Lulu asked me to try out their site by making a photo book, I thought of Christmas gifts right away. With La Petite's photos and editing assistance, I put together a lovely book of her work.

Uploading the pictures was easy, although it took time. La Petite uses a professional quality camera, so her photos were quite high resolution. The time was worthwhile to make sure the book was good quality in the end.

Placing the photos in the book was a mixed success. The drop and drag function was simple, but many of the layouts were odd sizes that required cropping of the original photos. I would have appreciated the option to resize the space on the page rather than resizing the photos themselves.

I recommend choosing a theme right away. I made the mistake of placing photos in the book and then choosing a theme with the end result of changing photo dimensions. Had I chosen the theme first, I might have avoided some of the problem mentioned above. Themes are varied and can compliment any photo set from any occasion.

When the demo book arrives, we're going to consider ordering more for gifts. Some people are hard to buy for; personal photo books are a great way to handle the gift dilemma.

Lulu.com will offer one reader a free photo book: a 8.5 X 8.5 in. 20 page hardcover book. If you're interested, leave a comment and make sure I can contact you by email! I'll put all the comments in a hat and pick one winner. Contest will close Friday, December 3, to give the winner a fighting chance and completing the book and getting it by Christmas.

Full disclosure: Lulu.com gave me one free photo book so I could experience the service and write a candid review. We're considering buying a second copy if we're pleased with the end result. There was no other compensation. Frankly, making the book was fun; it was enough compensation in itself!

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