Thank you Booxie for sponsoring this post. Share or remember your child’s milestones or celebrations with personalized photobooks from Booxie.
When you have family living across the country, you have to find ways to connect with them to share those big life milestones, such as your child’s first dance recital or a birthday celebration. Social media has made it easy to connect with family and friends near and far. But how can we share a more meaningful and complete story that doesn’t fade away with a single social post? And how can we make an extra effort to keep loved ones in the loop who don’t login to social media sites, or are seldom on a computer?
As a working mom to two toddlers, putting aside time to upload and spend an hour trying to find the best pictures to print and then mail them out is just too much work. Toss in the extra time required to post photos to various social sharing sites to make sure all loved one’s get access to the photos, and suddenly sharing photos from a big day just seems exhausting.
So when it was time to share photos, videos and stories from my daughters’ birthday party this past month, I searched for the best app that would let me do it all — tell the story of my girls’ special day and share it in a variety of ways, both digitally and as a tangible keepsake.
That’s how I stumbled upon a new storytelling app in the iPhone and iPad app store: Booxie. One of the first features of the free app that grabbed my attention was the ability to create an interactive photo book that could be posted on my website and Facebook, and sent via email and text to loved ones. And I discovered the app also lets you turn your digital stories into small printed books that are uniquely sized and easy to store and share, plus at a price point that makes sending Booxies to family and friends affordable! It was like a one-stop photo sharing spot ideal for those of us who need to share our memories both on the web and in print, and get a little creative in the process. Score!
I decided to create a Birthday Booxie to share the complete story of my daughter’s joint birthday party with friends and family. Navigating the app was easy thanks to the intuitive design. You simply upload photos from your phone, social networks and popular cloud-based storage platforms, like Dropbox, and you can rearrange pages and photos or delete and add up to 24 pages as you go.
Unlike other photo sharing sites that have set templates or require an account to view posts, I was able to integrate multiple photos, videos and special touches like stickers, captions and unique backgrounds to my Birthday Booxie without worrying about extra costs or how to send the digital book to family members who are not on social media. Creating my unique digital photo book on Booxie meant I could share my creation via social media, text, email, SMS or in print. I could also share it with connections on the Booxie platform.
I sifted though loads of photos captured on my phone and decided to run with a 16-page Birthday Booxie. Rather than focus on single images, I chose to create a book and tell a story of my daughters’ birthday party — from the visit by Princess Ariel and breaking a piñata, to spending time with friends and blowing out the candles on their cupcakes.
The two-page layout served as the highlight of my Birthday Booxie where I was able to share a central photo of my daughters blowing out the candles on their cupcakes along with actual video of everyone singing happy birthday. The design let me include all the fun elements of that part of the party, including all the little kids singing happy birthday alongside Princess Ariel and my 4-year-old snatching a cupcake off the table.
I loved that I was able to tell a story by grouping photos together, inserting text and adding special filters and frames to each page. I was able to make some pictures pop with the use of brightly colored text or a unique frame. The drawing feature was pretty useful since it allowed me to draw arrows to specific elements of the page, like the amazing cupcakes my husband baked and decorated. Yum!
And when I was done, I had the option of sharing the Birthday Booxie a few different ways. I posted it to Facebook, texted it to family members and ordered two sets of prints – one for grandma in Florida and one for me to keep as a keepsake in my memory box.
Booxie definitely helped to add such a personal and meaningful touch to commemorate and celebrate my daughters’ birthday. And I know their grandma will appreciate the special keepsake once it arrives in her mailbox.
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Here are some tips for creating a fun Birthday Booxie:
- Choose the right details. Booxie has stickers and graphics that add just the right decorative touches to your Birthday Booxie. There are cute cupcakes, balloons and present-themed graphics plus characters that can represent the unique personality of your birthday boy or girl. I picked cupcakes and cakes since my girls love sweets.
- Pick the right color scheme.Booxie has plenty of background designs as well. If you’ve already added the right details, then get the perfect shade for your Birthday Booxie with Booxie’s color palette, where you can customize certain elements to any shade you’d like. I love the pink gradient and the bubble-themed designs which fit right into the theme of the Under the Sea Birthday Party.
- Enhance your photos with filters. You can adjust your pictures to black and white or other filters really easily, and it gives you freedom to help set images apart from other aspects of your Booxie.
- Add Video! One of the most unique aspects of Booxie is that you can incorporate both photos AND video into your story. The video can be up to 15 seconds long, perfect for capturing blowing out the candles, which is exactly what I did in my personal Birthday Booxie!
- Type headlines and captions directly into Booxie and choose whatever font and text size you’d like.
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Download the free Booxie App on your iOS phone or tablet >>> bit.ly/BooxieApp
Ambrosia Brody is a full-time editor, journalist and mother to two spirited daughters. She started to blog at Random Aspects of (My) Life when she realized how much her daughters, and being a parent inspired her writing. Writing about all things parenting is now one of her favorite pastimes. Connect with her on her blog, Facebook or on Twitter.