Has any of you guys

M&MBride0506

made your own profile book?  I'm trying to figure out how to make the waiting time before my actual meeting with the adoption agency go by quickly. And I was considering putting together a mock profile, since I know that the agency will have to tell us what we can and cannot put in and all that, but I'm a huge planner and I was researching adoption profiles and there are sites out there that are charging up to and more than $500.  That's insane, but I'm thinking maybe that's the going price.  But then I was looking at shutterfly and that seems a little more reasonable.  But is that how it's done? 

Sorry for rambling...but that's just how I am...LOL.

Mel

maurisa74

The agency we are looking in to said some people make a traditional scrapbook and some use a website like shutterfly. I am not sure what all is involved with your agency. Ours just wanted something like a picture album of our life. 

MayDayGirl

we made ours before.  Our agency said something very basic, so we just did a word document with lots of pictures and stuff about our life.

CaseyLea

MayDayGirl:

we made ours before.  Our agency said something very basic, so we just did a word document with lots of pictures and stuff about our life.

 this, pretty simple

PSU-NCBride

I designed ours in Illustrator and then had a local professional printer print it pro bono. Our agency asked what company did our profile books so I was very proud of myself. I wanted ours to look different and stand out so we didn't go the scrapbook way. I went on some advertising websites and used some ads as inspiration.?

FinallyMrs.G

We made our own, we used Publisher. I wouldn't pay someone $500, that's insane.  I would use shutterfly before doing that. Our agency gave us a couple of sample profiles to help us get an idea of they wanted.

Stace26

We had to make our own profile.  I am very fortunate to have a graphic designer in the family who took our letter and pictures and put it together for us.  She really did a fantastic job!  Our agency was pretty particular how they wanted it...professional pics, titles for each page, captions, action shots of hubby and I together and separate.  Then we also attached our recommendation letters from family and friends. 

 

PSU-NCBride

I must have been really tired when I wrote my response. I used Publisher for the layout.?

Mom's Getting Married

Check out Scrapblog.com.  It is the easiest way to do digital scrapping (not literally cutting and pasting and stuff). You just click and drag...it's that easy. When you are done, you can either have them bind and print your books, or you can buy the .pdf (for like $20) from them and take it somewhere else and get it printed. It's what I used to make ours and our agency asked us what company we used. I had NEVER scrapbooked before in my life.

Erica

 

517butterfly

We made ours through snapfish.com and it was so easy to do and they turned out great!  I think it was somewhere around $30 but you can always find a promo code online to get a discount and they automatically give you a discount if you order duplicates (we were required to furnish 3 copies).  $500 is insane!

LadyRed7

i am lucky because i am a designer, so i did ours myself. Our agency charges $500 too.

I know some of you think that is insane, but to be honest, it doesn't give a designer a ton of time to lay out that many spreads, touch up photos or do whatever needs to be done, prep files for pre-press and all that jazz. If you think about how many hours you put into your own profile, the hours add up fast!  A flat rate fee like that is actually pretty reasonable in my industry. You would be shocked even more if you have a timer going! 

just my .02 coming from a designer.  

PSU-NCBride

I agree LadyRed.?

We had to print at least 20 profiles so there was no way I could afford $20 or $30 a book. ?

ColoRxGirl

I did ours on Shutterfly.  The site is pretty easy to use and it gave me lots of flexibility to change layouts, colors, fonts, etc.

Printing isn't cheap - we did a 26-page, 8"x 8" book and 10 of them were under $300.