creating a portfolio

We created ours digitally using Shutterfly to make bound books. It was super easy to use their software, and the books came out amazing! Very polished and professional. We were also concerned that these books would be riding in the back of a SW's car, possibly being passed out and around for a year or more to multiple families, and we wanted them to hold up! We were afraid that traditional books would fall apart. We only had to give our agency 3 (we had 4 made to keep one for ourselves to show are baby when they were older), and it was less then $30/each. Best of luck!

I did our profile as an 8.5 x 11 scrapbook. I usually scrapbook the 12 x 12 format; but agency guidelines dictated the size. That is actually a good size to work with since it's possible your profile will be mailed to birthparents. I had color copies made of the original on heavy weight paper at Staples then had the book coil bound with a clear cover and black vinyl back. Any changes were made to the original (pages added, removed, etc.) The original is in a top loading post bound scrapbook album. Hope this helps.

Hi,I am working on finishing our profile for waiting for a second adoption. We are hopefully turning it in a few days.I am doing it the same way I did our first--it is a plastic folder with clear pages already bound inside. I suppose it is a report folder or booklet, I think it was with the other report folders at Office Depot. It is white. I will be buying them this week, then I can tell you exactly what it is. It is about $7. I liked it because I can slide in the 8x11 paper on the front cover and inside the page protectors are already there, just slide in your pages. This time I will not be using all the clear pages, so I will just cut the extras close to where they are bound. I did make color copies of our scrapbook pages. It matters where you make them. A couple places I tried did not turn out well--I tried only a sample page before doing them all. Went to a Kinko's--one machine was great, the other not so good. Not photo paper. Last time color copies were $1 per page, I don't know how much now.If I had more time, after I decided which pics to use for sure (just finished deciding today!) I would just load and order from Snapfish. I have great luck with them, and prints are only 9-12 cents. Good luck--it took me a while of looking and deciding the first time around to figure out what would work for me.

We did our first profile by hand, and our second with photoshop. With our hand scrapped profile we did it in 8.5x11 and had it copied at our scrapbook store. They did a great job as their copiers are designed for scrapbook pages. We had all the copies made 8.5x11 and I believe we used a high quality matte paper. I would avoid a high gloss, especially if you are printing digitally. We then bound them by hand; we used scrapbook card stock for the front and back cover, and high quality sheet protectors for most of the pages. We bound the entire profile with ribbon. I prefer this even with digital scrapbooks over hard bound profiles because I think they can look too professional. I think handbound profiles look more home made and can come across less sterile. If you would like to see a photo of how they turned out you can PM me and I would be happy to send a photo. I believe most of the paper I used to scrapbook with started out 12x12 and I just cropped it with a paper cutter. I think they do make 8.5x11 scrapbook paper as well. Good luck!

I did 8.5 x 11. However, most printers and copiers need margins of at least .25 inches. I found that out the hard way. So, leave yourself some room around the edges. I copied onto plain paper, and put them in a nice report cover, with a clear front, so they could see our cover. I did ours by hand. I'd choose by hand over a photo web site any day, personally. If you're at all into digital scrapbooking, you can try Memory Mixer or Adobe PhotoShop Elements. However, if you're used to scrapping by hand, then you should go with what you know. You may have to make A LOT of copies, so I say go with plain paper in a nice report cover. Easy to part with, but still well-presented. Hope this helps! :hippie: