The Mixing Bowl 12: New Collaborative Books

Happy New Year everyone! We hope you had a wonderful 2007, and we wish you the best 2008 ever!

The year is off to a great start with “The Mixing Bowl” back in action. We’re excited to share some of the new books that have been made on our site as well as the ones that have been made through Facebook. It’s so exciting to see books that have been made with the click of a button — it’s the beginning of some really new innovations.

In any case, we’d like to start off with some picturesque views and fun commentary courtesy of this Mixbook -

Utah Extravaganza 2007 by Nik H.

This book follows four friends through their trek into Zion National Park – complete with stunning views, awesome photos of Antelope Canyon, and photographs scattered with beautiful sunlight. This Mixbook is fun to page through after all the hubbub of the holidays – it is simple and creative, marked with notes about the highlights of the trip.

This is great inspiration for the globe trekkers out there, as well as those of you who have hard drives chock full of photos from the past year. Take some time to upload them to Mixbook.com and you can make a book about your year in review.

One of our resident Mixbookers made a book about her year in review – all the highlights, special people, events, and even a hairdo change! Her book will remind her of all the memories of 2007 and then some.

2008 should be great,
Alison

The Mixing Bowl 10

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas earlier and earlier in the season nowadays. It seems that stores are just skipping Halloween and Thanksgiving altogether and going straight to Christmas trees and Santa Claus.

So with this 10th edition of The Mixing Bowl, we’ve hopped on the seasonal bandwagon! We wanted to inspire Mixbookers to make personalized Christmas gifts with a twist, so we made a Christmas Mixbook. This book is a compilation of page layouts that you could use for the holidays to bring someone you love a little cheer! It is fun, sweet, and so easy to make.

Check out some of our ideas, and catch the Holiday Spirit! Wouldn’t it be great to have all your Christmas shopping done by the end of November? Yes, of course it would!

Sending you Holiday Cheer,
Alison

Shout out to our intern Anna for making a stellar Mixbook!

The Mixing Bowl 6

Today’s Mixing Bowl book is a cool display of kids getting big air on bikes, boards, and even scooters! I love the use of our grungy blue circles background. Check it out!

Skate Park Concert by Matt Y.

I’ve always wanted to learn how to skateboard, but never really got the chance. This Mixbook inspires me to dream big and fly high with the guys and gals who participated in this rockin’ event in Derby, Kansas. And I won’t have to worry about eating the pavement.

Do you have an event coming up that you want to remember? Or maybe you took a hike this weekend and want to recall the scenery? It’s easy when you keep the background the same and the text simple. Take a cue from Matt and Mixbook about your next big event! Matt even used the book to promote their next event, which is coming in October 2007. Great job, Matt!

Trick Mixin’

Since we’ve been putting these posts off for way too long, we thought it would be a good idea to combine them into one super duper huge post! So here it is, the “Trick Mixin’” update … a compilation of a trick, some lick-the-spoon Mixing Bowl books, and a handy dandy mix-in treat.

Sound too good to be true? Keep reading!

Trick My Mix – Scrapbook Type

This trick is similar to the last one, as it focuses on how to decorate the pages of your book with type/words. The following are three examples of how to integrate words by making text boxes look like the cute letter cut-outs you’d see in scrapbooks.

- The biggest part of this technique is picking a layout that has square text boxes. My personal favorite is the 4 photo layout with two text boxes (as seen in the pink layout), but you can experiment with any layout.

- Next think of any word or words that you’d like to represent in the boxes. Here we have “C-U-T-E” and a series of words (silly, goofy, funny, us being us) for the boxes. For the word “cute” we set the font to Chaparral Pro Bold and the size to 59 or 60, and centered it in the box. You may have to play around with this to get it right.

- Create a Custom Frame by selecting the border color from a color on the page, and setting the border thickness to “8,” which is the thickest setting. Then to create a colored text box go to the “more” button in the Frames section, and click on any background color of your preference. Set the transparency to 1.00 so that the background of the text box will be completely solid. Click “Save” and your custom frame will be saved for future use. Drag the custom frame onto your text boxes, and voila! There you have it! Letter cut-outs to personalize your Mixbook – who would have thought?

- Play with your words - highlight only portions of text to enlarge,bold or italicize them. See below for our final example of this Scrapbook type method, then have at it!

The Mixing Bowl 5

This week’s Mixing Bowl is full of greens! Only one serving though, since we have jam packed this post full of other things.

Community Garden 2007 by Mark S., Lisa L. and Michelle B.

This book caught my eye because of the delicious fresh veggies that are on the front cover. This Mixbook is all about a group of folks that got together every week to spend an evening at a community garden. Months later, they enjoyed the literal fruits (and veggies) of their labor. This colorful and picturesque book makes gardening look like so much fun – I’m ready to pick up my gloves and go! I love how the Mixbookers used our textured backgrounds to add to the theme of the book – the first page has our grass background.

Mix-ins 4

This week’s Mix-ins come from our love of best friends and all the love they bring into our lives. Use a Mixbook to pay tribute to your best friend, the love of your life, or even 10 of your closest homies. Make a Mixbook about the memories and good times you have had together – just because. I’m willing to bet that your best bud will love it. Check out this sample from Mixbooker Libby S., and her best gal pal.

Well, that’s all she wrote for today. Enjoy!
Alison

Mix-ins 3

A Mixbook marriage made in heaven … or erm, cyberspace rather.

Mixbooker Joyce E. made a book with her family to celebrate her parents’ 60th wedding anniversary, complete with biographies on every child. This sweet book could be used for a family reunion where each family member could get a copy. It can be personalized with stories, inside jokes, and those memorable moments that deserve to be captured. A good way to get old photos converted into digital format is to send it off to be scanned and converted using a service like Scancafe.com

A Mixbook is far cooler than those family reunion pens and t-shirts. Far far cooler.

From our Mixbook Family to yours,
Alison

Mix-ins 2

Another great usage for a Mixbook is showcased here in a book by Mixbooker Jennifer – she used it to show off the recital performances of her dance students. This is one way for each student to have a memory of their dance performance and the fun they had! Jennifer can post her Mixbook on the dance studio’s website and invite her students to order a Mixbook.

This is a great idea for any teacher! Check out her book and get some inspiration for your own Mixbook!

Mixbook-a-lot,
Alison

Mix-ins

Mix-ins are that bit of yummy goodness that you add to make your Cold Stone Sweet Cream ice cream personalized to your tastes.

Mixbook “Mix-ins” are the same, they make a Mixbook that much sweeter. What can you do with a Mixbook to make it cooler than it already is? Here is one way:

Make a portfolio for your business to showcase your work in a professional soft-cover book, like two of our Mixbookers did:

This can boost your business and help you promote yourself without spending a lot of money. Mixbooks are relatively inexpensive if you need several copies of your book.

This is just one way to make a Mixbook oh-so-sweet … and useful too!

Join the Mixbookerade,
Alison

The Mixing Bowl

Hey all, it’s Alison, writing my very FIRST post on the Mixbook blog. So exciting!

There have been lots of things going on here at the Mixbook World HQ because we’ve been using your feedback to update, improve, and make Mixbook the best it can possibly be.

In all of the hubbub, your lovely creations have not gone unnoticed – many of you have been churning out fantastic Mixbooks that are worthy of recognition and praise. So this part of our blog will regularly feature notable and unique Mixbooks made by you, the user!

Thus, the Mixing Bowl is born … a compilation of current Mixbooker goodness for all eyes to see. Check it out!

1) Our Wedding by Sherri J.
For all you Weddingbee readers out there, here’s some inspiration for a photo book you can give away to friends and family. Sherri’s May nuptials are beautifully laid out using simple colored backgrounds and lots and lots of photos. It’s Mixbook in an elegant and classic style.

Be sure to check out pages 18 and 19 to see Sherri’s collection of fun wedding moments in one of my favorite layouts!

2) Chile 2007 by Abby M.
Abby’s book is a great example of what to do after you go on a trip. Upload your photos to Mixbook and make a book with a funny narrative of your silly adventures. I love her lighthearted yet poignant outlook on the people of Chile. She also proves that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover – this book has a lot to behold!

3) Uganda 2006 by David C. with Live Loud
Taking another trek across the globe, this Mixbook is all about the photos. Our full bleed pages allow the photographs to speak for themselves — each piece is a striking portrait of the life and condition of the Ugandan people. This book encourages the reader to have compassion by taking action to help, so that others can have hope. It’s a pretty powerful statement, and I find myself looking at the photos on pages 28 and 29 especially.

4) Beautiful Specific Details by birdie
This book is also surprising, and I love the different combinations presented – older photographs with new ones, along with black and white photos paired with sepia and colored photos. Her snippets about family and friends were touching and it looks like birdie had a lot of fun with this one!

5) San Francisco … on the bridge. by Rebecca P.
This book chronicles a day trip across the famous Golden Gate bridge, for Mixbooker Rebecca and her companions. I love that Rebecca used the color picker (found in the background section) to match the background to the photos AND used our custom frame tool to match the frames to the backgrounds! Great job, Rebecca!

Her story was sweet as well, chock full of adventure and laughter.

And there you have it! Take a look and create a book of your own, maybe you’ll find yourself in the Mixing Bowl one of these days.

Thanks for all the eye candy, Mixbookers! Keep up the good work!

Alison