My charaben book! January 15, 2009

This isn’t another excuse for not doing a bento blog today, but this definitely deserves an exclusive post.

A friend of mine, whom I’ve known for 7~8 years since art school & works at the same company gave me & my boyfriend belated Christmas presents yesterday.

I opened the package, and I could not believe my eyes.

It was a hardcover book of my bento!!!!!!!!!!!

She told me that she used an online self-publishing site called Lulu.com. I’ve seen an album she made using the same site before, but it was softcover and smaller, but this just totally blew me away. The quality of prints and the binding on the book look so professional.

The book starts with the bento that made my boyfriend go "Awwwww" the very first time! (It's not even in my flickr!)

I went to the site and seems like they can even print from one book! It’s not like I’ve never seen “print your pictures on stuff” sites before, and I have used a similar site before to print an image on a mug, but it came out really crappy. It was a couple of years ago, but I thought that’s what you’d get from those kind of sites, and never really thought of doing it again. I’m no publishing expert, but a 24 pages hardcover photo book, all in color with this quality for about under $25 (I think…? I could be wrong.) is worth every penny in my opinion.

They have so many different templates available. They also have “cook book” style, which gives you the space for the picture of food, and its recipe. But I’m so glad that she went for the “art book” style. And the font on the book cover is just so dead on. She knows me too well. 🙂

This is definitely one of the best gift I’ve ever gotten! I so want to make another book and send it to my mom!

If you know someone who loves taking pictures of their crafty works, taking pictures just as a hobby, drawing, or painting, I assure you that this will make them squeal with joy. I know I did. 🙂