Mixbook Calendar Review and Giveaway

Now that we're on the last month of the year, calendars have been appearing in all the gift shops and bookstores. Much as I love the beautiful photos on store-bought calendars, I always prefer the personal touch of photo calendars. Like everyone else, our photos are all on our computer or online, so it's really nice to be able to showcase our favorites on a calendar that anyone can see when they walk into the kitchen. It also makes a great holiday present for Alfie's parents and mine. I was recently invited to create a photo calendar on Mixbook, and I've been having so much fun creating it that I decided not to wait until my calendar arrives before sharing it with you.

Here's some information about Mixbook:
Mixbook was started with the idea that friends should be able to create books together. Though Mixbook software makes book creation easy and fun, it also allows groups of people to build books together. Now friends finally have a way to share their memories online! As the creator of the book, you can control every aspect of the book and edit or delete any page, but your friends can still give the book their own personalized stamp. Using our collaboration technology, events can now be captured from different points of view in a single book.

And here's some information about Mixbook's latest product, photo calendars:
Mixbook is the only place where you can collaborate with your loved ones and build calendars and books together. Also, unlike other photo book companies, all products are 100% customizable in that you can choose to start with blank pages or use a template that can be edited to your liking. Mixbook even has “stickers” and other personalized elements.

Creating a photo calendar with Mixbook couldn't be easier. You can start with one of 26 photo calendar designs -- and each is customizable so you can change text, layouts, holidays, events and photos -- or you can start with a blank calendar and build your own from scratch. Mixbook has an array of stickers, backgrounds, and layouts for you to add to your calendar. Their drag-and-drop interface is really easy to use, and you can stop, save and continue anytime you want.


Here are the 3 things I love best about Mixbooks:

1) There are so many ways to populate your calendar with photos. You can upload them to Mixbook; or, if like so many of us, you already have a bunch of photos online, you can get them from there, too. Mixbook lets you add photos from your Flickr, Facebook, Yahoo!, My Photos, SmugMug, PhotoBucket and Picasa accounts

2) Lots of photo calendar products let you add personalized events and holidays to the calendar grid (i.e. your kids' birthdays, your anniversary, the school auction, spring break, etc..) -- but Mixbook has the only photo calendar I know of where you can actually put photos on individual dates in the calendar grid! So you get a chance to showcase even more photos. To illustrate, check out my November layout:

The predefined layout only allows for 2 photos, but I wanted to show off some of the yummy foods we love to eat in November, so I added another photo and put a circle sticker behind it to really make it pop. I also added a photo of Alfie and me on our wedding anniversary date, and a cute turkey graphic on Thanksgiving day. I've been having so much fun putting photos of the kids on their birthdays, photos of couples on their anniversary dates, a photo of the kids licking ice cream on the last day of school, and more.

3) Even better, Mixbook is the only site I know of that allows a group of people to collaborate on the same project. So now my sister and I can create a photo book or a photo calendar for my parents, and we can upload photos of our kids separately, instead of me mailing my photos to her or vice versa. We can each design half of the book, and the collaboration feature makes it easy to keep our designs consistent and give it a nice flow. Since she lives in the Philippines and I live in the US, it's absolutely perfect!

I have nothing but good things to say about Mixbook at this point, and I'm looking forward to receiving my new Mixbook photo calendar!

Save 20% at Mixbook
Save 20% off your purchase at Mixbook with the code BONGGAMX20. This coupon does not expire!

Win a Mixbook Calendar
One lucky Bonggamom Finds winner will receive a free Mixbook fully customizable calendar with free US ground shipping (the prize will be mailed in the form of a code, which expires 01/31/11 at 11:59 pm PST). What a great chance to get a 2011 calendar just in time for the New Year!


Required Entry
Leave a comment on this post and tell me which of Mixbook's 26 fully customizable photo calendar designs you like best. This entry must be completed before other entries will count.


Extra Entries
For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following. Please leave a separate comment on this post for each extra entry, with a way to verify the entry (i.e. tweet link, blog post link, blog comment link, Facebook id, Twitter id, etc.).


1) Grab my blog button and post it up on your blog (1 entry).

2) Subscribe to Bonggamom Finds updates (1 entry).

3) Write this on the Bonggamom Finds Facebook wall (1 entry):

I entered the Mixbook photo calendar giveaway! http://ow.ly/3oJOm

4) Write this on the Mixbook Facebook wall (1 entry):

I entered the Mixbook photo calendar giveaway on Bonggamom Finds! http://ow.ly/3oJOm

4) Follow Bonggamom Finds on Networked Blogs (1 entry).

5) Follow Bonggamom Finds on Blogger (1 entry).

6) Follow Mixbook on Twitter (1 entry)

7) Tweet this, up to once per day (1 entry per day, leave a comment with the tweet link for each tweet):

Enter to win a fully customizable photo calendar from @mixbook and @bonggafinds http://ow.ly/3oJOm #giveaway

8) Join any of the other open giveaways on Bonggamom Finds (leave a comment with the name of the giveaway you joined, 1 entry per giveaway you've joined).


The Rules
This giveaway ends at midnight PST on December 24, 2010; I will draw a winner at random on December 25. I will post the winner's name in the comments section after he/she confirms acceptance. Continental US residents only. Note, prize will be mailed in the form of a prize code -- code expires on 1/31/2011. For additional giveaway rules, click here. Good luck!


Disclosure: I received a code to create my own free Mixbook calendar, but was not paid to review the product or give my opinions. Product information is provided by the featured company and is clearly indicated as such. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.