I just got 11 Finao elements books. I intend on giving them away as freebies to all of my brides.

These things rock. And are a steal of a deal. I got the 5x5 and 4x6 sizes in a variety of cover options.

Here are some pics. These are the happy cow, mellow yellow and rain forest. Haute envy, penny, obsidian, and catalina. and brocade Nehru, Argento, and Sultan spice.

Enjoy

These look really great! Forgive my ignorance, but how do you put the photos in them? Are they slip-ins???Just answered my own question... Self-mount!

Oooo! I love them, thank you for posting the pictures! I have never used a self-mount, so I am sorry if this is a stupid question, but is it hard to get the images lined up on the page straight? And if they don't go down perfect, can you adjust them without damaging the print and the page?

It doesn't seem to me like it would be that hard. I haven't mounted any prints yet. They have a tutorial on their website. The adhesive is supposed to be forgiving and first and then become very solid as time goes on.

Mmm, those look rather yummy! Thanks for the pics.

Those look fantastic. I love Finao ONE albums, and about to order a couple Elements! Thanks for your review!

Love them! I'm ordering some soon. How long did yours take?

about 4 weeks. However I ordered 11, with all different cover options and sizes. A smaller, less complicated order may take shorter. Also their shipping costs were very very reasonable. I paid something like $20 for shipping. Not bad in my opinion.

The brocade books are very nice and classy. The different materials give them a different look and feel. Since the brocade is a thinner material the book is more "pointy" The happy cow and Haute materials are thicker and make the corners a bit more round.

The packaging is pretty nice. The come in a presentable simple black box. Inside the box it is padded with kraft colored tissue paper. The book itself is nicely wrapped in kraft colored tissue paper with a nice black ribbon around it. The ribbon is held together by a sticker that says Finao. I simply covered this with my own little sticker. I am pretty sure they use recycled paper for everything. I could be wrong though. I love eco friendly companies though. All of their Elements materials are cow-free and environmentally happy.

Ok I just went and took a picture of the packaging.

Also I will upload some pics of their swatch cards. Totally worth it.

I use these books all the time and love them. The adhesive isn't as forgiving as they say (at least not in my experience) but with care the mounting isn't that difficult. And if you're paranoid you can pay them to do it for you.

i just ordered a bunch of elements for the same purpose and cannot wait for them to come in!!!!!!

Ditto, if you mess up and have to pull the print off the print will be ruined (unless there's some magic way to do this that I don't know about, but in my experience the print just bends and isn't usable), but the book page will be fine and ready for you to try another print.

So my advice would be not to wait until the day before you're supposed to send it out, in case you have to order more prints! Or like Ryan said, have them do it for you.

Ryan,I saw your little books on the Finao blog. Did you use a template to lay out your images. I like the ways yours turned out. How many sales of these do you get. What do you use them for specially. Just portraits and purse books. I think I will give these away for 1-2 years until brides start expecting them through their friends saying things like, "oh he always gives away free little books." After that I will need to find something else to give away. I love giving things away, consider it my wedding present. JohnTake good care to remember the way they wrapped them. It was really hard to emulate it and re-wrap them when they arrived.

John, thanks for posting the additional images. Album companies never have enough photos on their websites, which always irks me because they are supposed to be marketing to photographers and we love pictures!

How is the happy cow material? Does it feel nice? How much does it really resemble leather? Is it obviously man-made looking?

The Happy cow material is super nice. It has a great soft feel to it. It is definitely one of the best faux leather materials I have felt. It also give the album I really nice smooth feeling. The way they do the corners on their happy cow leather is really neat too. It give the corners a great rounded look.

I really like the rain forest green album. However I am not exactly thrilled with the color of the mellow yellow. It is a little bit too mellow. If I had to choose again I would go with the red hot, caramel, or texas tea. I order these before I got my swatches so I had to guess off of their website. Not saying their website is inaccurate at all. But up close and on the book I'd say I'd go for something that sticks out more.

Totally understand what you mean about pictures. However to be completely honest Finao has one of the most picture laden websites out there. They have hundreds of pics which I appreciate.

These look really yummy.

I use these as a gift for my brides too and they LOVE them. I just ordered some larger ones to try and sell for kids and family shoots. I was thrilled when I got my first batch of them and I just ordered more this weekend. LOVE THEM!

Thanks for posting this! I've wanted something like this for a while now, but I get a little overwhelmed when searching out my options! There are too many choices!

thanks john for posting all of this, i've just added finao to my vendor list and am going to order my samples this week. they look really great, fresh and contemporary!

When you use these as a gift to brides, do you choose the cover and photos.
If so, what type of photos do you normally choose? Just the portraits, or a sequence of the the events?

i love finding new vendors .. anyone else have something out of the ordinary? i know a fellow photographer was getting mini books like these from italy but they were not mount books, they came like a reg. album.

i love these and they are so cute!

cant wait to see them up close

Perfect timing on the post and photos... thanks!:) I'm switching from Graphi to Kiss albums, and I want to be able to offer a parent album that my couple described (something nice, but not too big)... I think this will do!:)

wow, thanks for posting. These look awesome and I've been hunting for a new alternative! cheers!