Special offer for my readers from Total Yearbooks! Use the code LM10 and get 10% off your order until Feb. 15, 2013. Share this with your friends as well! 🙂
The giveaway is now closed. Please see the end of the post right below the Rafflecopter form for the winner of the giveaway! Please read my review to learn more about Total Yearbooks!
I have an exciting giveaway from Total Yearbooks with the chance for you to create the photo book(s) or yearbook(s) you’ve been needing to create! Total Yearbooks is sponsoring a giveaway of a $50 gift certificate to a lucky winner from the U.S., Canada, or Europe! This is perfect for a Christmas gift or New Year’s resolution!
Total Yearbooks Review
Are you like me with years of photos that need to be added to photo albums or scrapbooks? Or are you a homeschooler who has a hard time getting around to finishing even one yearbook? I homeschooled two kids through high school and had ONE yearbook at the end … from our first year of official homeschooling. I made that yearbook by hand for the 1991-92 school year and found it too time-consuming to do another one!
Still, I always wished we had more yearbooks, since my kids loved the one we had and looked through it many times. Total Yearbooks is one of my sponsors, and I always thought the Total Yearbooks photo books and yearbooks looked awesome. Still, I wasn’t sure how I would be able to create a yearbook from the many years of photo albums, photo envelopes, and photos on my computer.
The chance to create yearbooks (FINALLY) for my kids was too good to pass up. So, I decided to create a yearbook first for Will for his official homeschooling from 1991-2002. I thought I would see what needed to be done differently before creating my daughter’s homeschool yearbook for 1991-2006.
The most difficult part for me was that I was putting together years worth of photos into one album (PROCRASTINATION LIKE MINE NOT RECOMMENDED!), and my son’s homeschooling was all done before I had a digital camera. I had to sort through years of photo albums (and even some photo envelopes) to decide on the photos I wanted to use, scan them into my computer, and then edit my scanned photos. (My scanner tends to leave dots on the photos, so each photo needed some editing.) With digital photos, this would be SO MUCH EASIER! With digital photos, I could easily create a yearbook each year if I were homeschooling today.
To create a 20-page yearbook, I just had to go to the yearbooks page to learn a bit more about the process, choose a template (everything from baby books to school yearbooks to wedding albums … I chose the “graduation memories” template for a mixture of regular pages at the beginning and middle of my yearbook and graduation pages at the end.), upload my photos, and design my project. You also have the option to upload a PDF or jpgs created with digital scrapbooking software.
Creating a photo book with the online templates at Total Yearbooks is quite simple. Once you have your template, you can easily add or delete pages, add text, and arrange your pages in the order you’d like. Once you’ve created a yearbook or photo book, it’s very easy to create another one.
I decided to order one of the least expensive options to see what the quality would be. There are many options for sizes of photo book or yearbook as well as quality of printing and softcover or hardcover bindings. For as little as $15.99 (plus $5.98 shipping – or whichever level of shipping you choose), I could get an 8.5″x8.5″ Perfect Bound Softcover with Express Photo Silk Paper (acid-free paper). When I sent an email asking about types of bindings, I received a very quick response. My yearbook was processed quickly and arrived well-packaged and in perfect condition.
Right away, my husband and I sat down and looked through the book. We were both very happy and impressed. It’s a professional-looking, high-quality book. I like the feel of the paper, too. I really can’t believe how professional it looks with the poor quality of the photos I had. It definitely made me smile!
At another time, I want to order a special hardcover copy to give as a gift to my son. My project is still in my Total Yearbooks account, so all I need to do is place the order.
If you have a class or school, club, church group, sports team, or any type of organization you’d like to create a yearbook for, you can make your project public and make your photo book or yearbook available for sale in the Total Yearbooks web store. Whoever orders can choose their own size, printing, and binding. Bulk yearbook pricing is available for larger orders. You can use your yearbook as a group fundraiser if you’d like.
My photos are still available in my online gallery, so it’ll be extra easy to create my daughter’s homeschool yearbook because many of the photos used will be the same. And her homeschool high-school years were even photographed with a digital camera! Now we just need to put together her yearbook from her homeschooling 1991-2006. (We’re counting her homeschooling from age 1½ through her high school graduation at age 16.)
With Total Yearbooks, I would have been able to easily make preschool yearbooks and homeschool yearbooks every year, and my kids would have enjoyed working on them with me. If I still had a Montessori school, I’d probably make a yearbook each year (maybe have a parent committee in charge of putting it together).
With Total Yearbooks’ very competitive pricing and high-quality publishing, they’re a perfect option for photo books of all kinds. I highly recommend them!
Disclosure: I was given a $50 gift certificate to create this review. I wasn’t required to give a positive review, and my opinions are all my own.
Now for the Giveaway:
What You Will Win: $50 Total Yearbooks Gift Certificate for a lucky winner from the U.S., Canada, or Europe
Who is Eligible:
This giveaway is open to anyone 18 and older from the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The first entry is mandatory. You must leave a blog post comment telling why you want to win (and be sure to click the green “ENTER” on the Rafflecopter form to let me know you left your blog post comment and to open up the optional entries)! After you’ve completed your mandatory entry, there are lots of optional entries. You have many chances to win! (Note: For the extra entries, you may count ways of following that you already do. For example, if you previously “liked” Living Montessori Now on Facebook, you may still count that for your “like” Living Montessori Now on Facebook entry!)
It’s easy to enter giveaways with Rafflecopter! Just follow the directions to enter.If you still have questions about the Rafflecopter form, here’s a 52-second video with quick directions for entering through Rafflecopter.
You must complete the Mandatory Entry to qualify for any additional entries. The giveaway closes 10:00pm MST on Thursday, December 13. Best of luck! 
a Rafflecopter giveaway
UPDATE:
It’s early morning, Friday, December 14. Thank you for the 655 entries! A winner has been selected using Random.org through Rafflecopter!
The winner of the $50 Total Yearbooks Gift Certificate is Marlene V!
I’m so happy for Marlene, who had multiple entries.
The comment for Marlene’s mandatory entry said:
I want to take my photos and create something great for grandma of the kids!!
CONGRATULATIONS, Marlene!! THANK YOU SO MUCH to Total Yearbooks for sponsoring the giveaway – and thank you to everyone who entered!
Special offer for my readers from Total Yearbooks! Use the code LM10 and get 10% off your order until Feb. 15, 2013. Share this with your friends as well! 🙂
And, always, thanks so much to all my blog sponsors!
I want to take my photos and create something great for grandma of the kids!!
I would love to create a yearbook for my four boys!!
I’d like to make a book of my baby’s first year.
Would love to try it.
winning this giveaway might help me catch up on making annual scrapbooks for my little one.
This looks like a fun way to preserve our family memories. Would love this!
I’d like to win because I always have grand plans for downloading the billions of photos I take of hte kids and compliling them somehow, but as yet I have not. Something this straightforward would be the catalyst to get me actually doing it!
I’m a mess when it comes to organizing photos and preserving memories but I think this would give me an incentive to get it together!
This would be an amazing way to document my twins, thank you!
My sister’s 10 year wedding anniversary is coming up, and I would love to use this to make her an amazing anniversary album! Thanks for hosting such a great giveaway!
I would choose the “Our Family Memories” template for a photo project. Thanks!
this looks beautiful and i would love to see it in my home
One of my close friends home schools, I think this would be such a sweet gift!
It would be great to make an album of my days at home with my toddler and all the activities we do 🙂
I would make a book of pictures of my kids throughout the years and use it to embarrass them on their first dates.
This would be a great way to begin logging our year!
I like the yearbook globe template.
I want to win because my daughter hasn’t had a yearbook since we started homeschooling and this would be a great idea for her. Thanks for hosting this!
I’d love to make a photobook of my son’s first year! thanks for the giveaway 🙂
i like the family fun template