The most personalised gift a grandparent, auntie or uncle can give

Open the photos on your phone and search their name. If you are a grandparent, there are probably hundreds. Birthday candles, a muddy face at the beach, the one where they fell asleep on your shoulder halfway through a sentence. Most of them are a bit blurry. A dozen are perfect.

The most personalised gift a grandparent, auntie or uncle can give is a book built from scratch around the child: drawn from one of those perfect photos, written around what they love and the things only you would know about them, with you in the story beside them. You already have nearly everything it takes. This piece covers what that kind of book is, what you need to make one yourself, how to put yourself in it, and when a gift card is the better move.

We are Almia, and the fully-custom kind of book this piece recommends is what we build. The comparison below covers all four kinds of personalised book, ours included, so you can see where each one sits.

What makes one personalised gift more personal than another?

How far the personalisation reaches. A name on a cover is the shallowest version; a story written from scratch around one child, with that child drawn on every page, is the deepest. Many personalised gifts stop at the name, because the name is the only thing the shop asks you for.

For a picture book, there are four kinds. We went through them properly in the guide to the four kinds of personalised book. Here is the short version, from the gift-giver's side:

The last row is the one worth your attention, because the thing it asks for is the thing a grandparent, an auntie or an uncle already has in quantity. A photo, and years of knowing the child.

What do you need to make a personalised book for a grandchild, niece or nephew?

A clear photo of the child, which you almost certainly already have, and the things you know about them. That is the whole list, and you can make the book start to finish yourself.

The photo is the easy part. A clear, well-lit shot of the child's face, taken from the front, does the job; daylight and a plain background help. The one where they are squinting into the sun at the zoo will not. The one of them grinning at you across the kitchen table will. Every page of the book is drawn from that photo, so their hair, skin tone and face stay theirs from the first scene to the last. If you want to see how a photo becomes a character, the piece on books made from a child's photo walks through it.

Then come the details, and this is where relatives have an edge most people miss. A parent knows what the child had for breakfast. You know the long view. The word they still say wrong that you never correct. The song you always sing in the car. The thing the two of you do every time they come over, which their parents might not even know is a ritual.

Those are the details that make a story feel like it was written about this child and no other. Put them in.

The one thing a parent does know better is what the child is obsessed with right now. Obsessions turn over fast at three. Dinosaurs in March can be bugs by May. If you are not sure, one question to a parent, something like "What's she mad about at the moment?", gets you the detail that makes the book land the day it arrives.

Can a grandparent be in the personalised book too?

Yes. Once the child's character looks right, you add a photo of yourself, and you are drawn beside them through the story with your own face kept the same on every page. The child is still the hero. You are the person they go on it with.

This is the part that turns a nice present into one the child keeps going back to. A book with two people in it stops being about the child and becomes about the two of you. It works best when the story is built around something you really do together, and the smaller that thing is, the better the book. The walk to the corner shop for an ice block. Feeding the chooks. Fishing off the end of the jetty, where nobody catches anything and that is fine.

We saw this in the Father's Day piece, about a book with a child and their dad in it. The ordinary afternoon made a better book than a big occasion would have. The same holds for a nan and her grandson, or an uncle and his niece.

A book has room for the child and up to two people beside them. So it is you and the child, or you, your partner and the child. It is not the whole family at Christmas lunch, and that is a good thing. A story about a crowd is a story about nobody in particular.

Should you make the book yourself or give a gift card?

Make it yourself if you want the story to carry what you know about the child, or if you want to be in it. Give a gift card if you would rather their parent chose the story, or if you live far away and do not know the child's world well right now.

Both end in the same book: a hardcover drawn from the child's photo, with a story built around them. The difference is whose knowledge goes into it.

The gift card has a few things going for it. The parent gets to make the book with the child's current obsession front and centre, at whatever moment suits them, and the card stays good for three years. You can have the code emailed straight to them, or sent to you to write inside a birthday card and hand over in person. That second option suits anyone who wants there to be something to unwrap on the day.

But if you have the photo and the stories, make it yourself. Nobody else is going to write the jetty into it.

What should you write in the dedication?

Something short that only you could have written. Every book opens with a dedication page; one is written for you from the details you share, and you can replace it with your own words, up to 180 characters.

180 characters is about two sentences. That is plenty, and it is a useful limit, because the instinct with a gift like this is to say everything. Don't. The dedication is the line they will read at twenty, so make it sound like you.

A few patterns that work:

• A shared joke or ritual. "For Ruby, who always wins at Uno (we both know how). Love, Pop."
• A thing you want them to know. "Leo, you were the first baby I ever held who didn't cry. Love always, Auntie Sam."
• The plain version. A name, a date and "with all my love" is never wrong.

Sign it the way they say your name. Nan, Nonna, Pop, Lola, Uncle Davo. That word on the first page is part of the gift.

How long does it take, and where does the book go?

The story is ready to read on screen in about 10 to 15 minutes. Once you approve it, the hardcover arrives in 7 to 10 business days in Australia and 10 to 14 in New Zealand, tracked, to whichever address you choose.

You see the whole book, every page and every picture, before you pay anything, and you can redraw any scene that does not look right. Payment is taken only once you approve it. Then it goes to the printer.

You can send it straight to the child's front door or to your own to wrap. Double-check the address before you pay, because a custom book goes to print quickly and the address cannot be changed afterwards. If there is a birthday or Christmas date in play, work back from it with a few days spare.

If you are wondering whether one book is enough, or whether there is room for a second one later on from you, how many personalised books a child can have is the piece for that. And if you are still choosing between a personalised book and a classic off the shelf, personalised vs generic books as gifts sets the two side by side.

A note on how we make them

We are Almia. Every one of our books is built from scratch around the child it is for: the story, the dedication and every picture. There is no stock story with a gap for a grandparent's name. If you put the jetty in, the book has a jetty in it.

The plain specifics: hardcover, 26 pages, 170gsm silk paper, matte-laminated cover, A$59.95 plus A$16.00 delivery. It arrives in 7 to 10 business days in Australia and 10 to 14 in New Zealand, tracked. We currently deliver to Australia and New Zealand, with global delivery on the way. And you read the whole book free before you pay anything.

Ellen & Diego, Founders of Almia