Zno

FREE! Who's ears don't perk up when you hear that word? It certainly gets my attention. So when I saw an ad that said Free 8x8 Little Black Book, I decided to check it out. And I'm glad I did!

I was planning on getting a year book from Tinybeans (check out my Tinybeans blog post - https://mannclan.wixsite.com/mannclan/blog/tinybeans), but when the year was over and I went to order my book two things quickly made me scratch that plan.

First, it cost almost $100! Now it did only cost $5 for each additional book order after the first one, but still $100, and I wasn't planning on ordering other. I thought, "Well maybe my mom and Chris's mom would want a book too and we could all split the cost.". Then I looked at the preview of the book Tinybeans put together and I was extremely underwhelmed. The pictures were all cropped down to squares, which cut off a lot in the picture since basically all my pictures were landscape or portrait. It didn't show every picture, it showed the calendar layout for each month then picked a few pictures to highlight. I also couldn't figure out where to edit the layout anywhere, which originally would have been fine, because the purpose of me wanting to use use Tinybeans was that my pictures were all there and I didn't have to put the album together. If I wanted to put the book together I would have just used Shutterfly or something similar. But the way they had layed out everything (in my opinion) looked awful. Definitely not something I would proudly display and share.

I'd been putting together a physical photo album throughout the year as well, getting 4x6 prints from Amazon Prime Photo (which is amazing - https://mannclan.wixsite.com/mannclan/blog/prime-photos) so after Tinybeans disappointed I was planning on just having the photo album filled with printed pictures, then I discovered Zno.

I honestly don't know where I first saw an ad for Zno, if it was on Facebook, Instagram or email, but I saw that I could get a free 8x8 photo book, I just had to pay the $5 for shipping. So for $5 I thought I would give it a try.

My book could only be 24 pages so I decided to do one page for each of Claire's month pictures, then the other pages do a collage of pictures from that month. You do everything via the Zno app so overall it was very easy to put together. It did take me a while to pick out the 9 pictures for the month collage and put them in a collage, but I'm a perfectionist when it comes to stuff like this, so a normal person could've probably put it together much quicker. After everything looked how I wanted I started the ordering process. I discovered that I could upgrade to a hardcover book if I posted about Zno on Facebook, and I'm glad I did because the book turned out beautiful!

The pages are quite thick and sturdy (not that I was give it to Claire to look at like a board book, because I'm sure she could do some damage to it) but they make it feel like a high end keepsake. The cover is another fun part of the book. It's soft and sort of plushy and can be customized with a picture, a color and a title. As you can see below I just decided to go very simple and do a plain pink cover.

The order process was fairly easy and I liked that I could do everything from my phone. It took a little under two weeks to receive my book after I place the order, which was a fine timeline for me. I don't personally know anyone else who has ordered from Zno, so I really didn't know what to expect or what the finished product would turn out like, but I was blown away by the quality of my book. It will be a wonderful keepsake of Claire's first year.

Besides books and albums Zno also makes canvases, frames, prints, cards, posters, calendars, photo gifts, and brochures. I haven't gotten anything besides my 8x8 book right now, but I would definitely come back and look for other printed items.

You can get a free 8x8 book yourself, all you have to do is download the Zno app!

Visit www.zno.com for more information.