By Charlie’s dad...
At around the same time that we were approaching our son Charlie’s fifth birthday, we happened to spend an afternoon flicking through our hundreds of family photographs.
As we looked at them, I just thought about what a great story the pictures could illustrate – all these memories came flooding back and I guess I started to think about putting them in a scrapbook.
Not knowing how to put together a magazine or book myself I looked online for a company that might be able to put something together for us and, fortunately, I came across LifetimesMAG.com.
I liked the look of their products and made contact with them, and the thing that struck me straight away was that our thoughts as parents would be a key consideration in creating the magazine.
Obviously they have expertise in writing and design, and we referred to their experience and advice on these points, but in terms of what we wanted to include in our Bespoke magazine, they stuck to our plan to the absolute letter – including everything we wanted.
We actually went for a Memory Mag option rather than a Birthday, as we wanted to include a few stories about his first five years.
We had a look at the design options but, to be honest, looking at a publication for a small boy who loves superheroes, we just knew that the Comic design would be perfect. We ordered 20 printed copies of them, which pretty much covered us and our families.
We, of course, enjoyed spending some time picking our favourite photos and then just emailed them over. In terms of the design, LifetimesMAG then did the rest.
I absolutely loved looking back at Charlie’s first five years and recounting various stories with him and my wife.
It was great putting those memories together that I mentioned, and thinking back to some happy moments and reflecting on what a great kid Charlie is. We then submitted the words and, thankfully, the guys at LifetimesMAG got back to me concerning a couple of typos in our answers and the odd question.
We were absolutely stunned when we saw the finished product. Honestly, I couldn’t stop smiling as it was so great seeing his face, all these great photos and headlines - the design just brought it all to life.
Charlie was over the moon when he saw it – his jaw literally hit the ground and he felt like a real comic book hero. He couldn't stop giggling! We spent the whole of his birthday morning just laughing at the pictures and talking about it.
He’s got one copy that he has taken to school time and time again to show his friends and we’ve tucked one away for him to enjoy when he’s older as it's definitely something to keep for years into the future.
To check out Charlie’s LifetimesMAG in an online flipbook, click here.
To find out more about LifetimesMAG's unique, personalised magazines, visit our Occasions page to browse the range of styles for different life milestones and Contact Us at info@LifetimesMAG.com for further information.