Review & Giveaway - Blue Friesian Celebrity Style Magazine Cover, Superb Gift

I have had some great fun over the last couple of days creating my own magazine covers and 1 page spreads of spoof celebrity magazines. I created 3 in total and these are all to be surprise gifts for people.  I am really excited to be able to give them as I know the people are just going to love the effort and thought that has gone into them. The really great thing is that you can adapt the template to anything you fancy.  Take the example below, a 1 page spread from the magazine Esquire (bet you can not guess what this is based on?) it is set for a cycling theme but I actually changed it to an announcement of the Dad of the Year Award and now I have dh's Fathers day gift - perfect! This 1 page spread cost me £10 to have it professionally printed and sent to me or for £7 I could download it as a PDF and print it as many times as I need to.

Next up I created a cover for a friend of mine who has recently passed her Masters, she worked so hard on it, that it is nice to be able to celebrate with something a little different and to give her a keepsake to treasure forever.

There are a good variety of designs available at Blue Friesian, you can choose to make a cover, 1 page spread, 8 page magazine or 12 page magazine.  The pricing varies on what you wish to purchase and they get cheaper and cheaper the more you buy. Just imagine after your wedding you create a one page spread from something like KO to share your beautiful memories and photos from the day and use this as your thank you letter. You could have 50 of these printed and sent to you for only £50.00, that is only £1.00 each - no more than a decent wedding thank you card, and the beauty is that these are excellent quality A4 keepsakes - Fabulous!

So how did I find the process?

• The first 1 page spread (and my most intricate with 8 photos and about 8 sections of wording) probably took me about 45 minutes to create from start to finish and that was learning the system too. The cover for my friend then just took about 5 minutes literally and my dh's 1 page spread was about 15 minutes.  So these do not have to be a bind to create.
• You can only upload 1 photo at a time which worked but was not as quick as I would have liked, however the owner of Blue Friesian has showed me she is chasing her web developers for a fix to this.
• Currently you have to go to an external tool to crop or enhance your photos to then fit them into the boxes available. I used PicNik which is free and easy to use. Again Blue Friesian are currently waiting for an enhanced version of their editing tool, this will allow you to crop and move images on the Blue Fresian website.  This will make a good service even better.
• At one point I got a little stuck (it think it was technophobic me rather than anything else) and I emailed and received a fantastic and helpful response.  Blue Fresian pride themselves on their excellent customer service and I can certainly vouch for that, it was been a pleasure dealing with them.
• At check out there are loads of options for you to pay.  I used paypal for peace of mind.
• Postage is included in the cost and I like this, no hidden extras.
• I have now received small jpeg images of my covers so that I can email them to friends, share on facebook etc and that is a super little extra.  Sadly I won't be sharing my covers here as they all contain lots of personal information that I am normally very careful to conceal on my blog!

In short I enjoyed myself, making these gifts was fun and not too difficult at all (even for a technophobe like me!). I think the pricing is good value and once I receive the products I will report back on the quality.  I have no doubt it will be anything but perfect as the service I have received from Blue Friesian so far leads me to believe this lady feels the customer is king!

Edit:  I received the covers I made in good time, the packaging was good and appropriate for the package. I was really very pleased with the quality, the covers are on 350gsm and are therefore very durable and great for framing.  If you order a magazine these come on 150gsm paper, again making them a long-life keepsake.

So now, are you interested!  Want to enter my giveaway to win yourself a £25.00 voucher to spend on the Blue Friesian website? This would create you a couple of covers or a beautiful magazine.

To enter -

• Mandatory - Suggest the title of a baby magazine that Blue Friesion can add to their portfolio (you know the sort Practical Parenting, Mother and Baby, Prima Baby, Pregnancy and Birth) and if you are really clever you can suggest the spoof name too but that is optional!
• For 2 extra entries visit Blue Friesian's Facebook page and press like (they do fab giveaway's on there) and while you are there check out my facebook page and like that too.
• Once you have done that, leave me a comment below to let me know.
• If you want an extra entry tweet the giveaway with @michelletwinmum in the tweet so I know

The exciting bit!

On 1st March 2011 Blue Friesian will launch a new cover to add to their portfolio based on which baby magazine title got the most votes, here at Mummy From The Heart...  So if you want to feel a part of the growth of this super business then get voting now!  Just leave a comment, then check back here or on Blue Friesian's Facebook Page after the closing date and see if your favourite magazine was voted the winner.

Terms and Conditions

• Giveaway ends 12 noon Tuesday 1st February 2011
• Open to all UK and Ireland residents.
• The prize is not transferable or refundable and there is not a cash alternative.
• The prize will be sent direct from Blue Friesian to the lucky winner.
• I will use a random number generator to pick the winner.
• I will contact the winner within 3 days of the giveaway closing.
• Please leave an email or twitter ID so I can contact you if you win.

Good Luck!

I'll leave you with another couple of covers to feast your eyes on.  Perfect for a kid's birthday party?

This is a review post.  I was given £25 credit for the Blue Friesian website. I remain honest in my review of the service I used.

Congratulations to Becky, you are thew winner picked at Random.  Please email or DM me your email address and Blue Friesian will contact you about the prize.