100 homemade gift ideas » photo gifts

Homemade Gift Idea #95: Homemade Photographic Greeting Cards

aniccaph — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:29:28 +0000

This homemade gift idea kind of goes along the same lines as the previous post Homemade Gift Idea #96: Homemade Photographic Personalized Calendars. I was initially hesitant about this gift idea. Would people really want greeting cards as gifts? I have another hobby in nature photography. A friend of mine had seen some of my shots and told me that it would make a great homemade gift idea to use some of them in greeting cards. She said the recipients would be impressed and would use them, two qualities that I strive for in every homemade gift I make. I was hesitant, but I went ahead with it. Along with Homemade Gift Idea #99: Homemade Melt and Pour Soap Bars, they ended up being probably my most successful homemade gift idea.

There are a few ways you can go about this:

You could upload your photos to a site like cardsdirect.com. You can choose from many different of sizes, styles, backgrounds, and borders. The minimum purchase is 100 cards, but if you are making a several boxes of these as gifts, you’ll easily make that many. The downside to them is that you can only choose one photo for every hundred cards.

The other way requires more work, is more hands-on… but hey the name of this site is 100 homemade gift ideas, so you are probably here anticipating some amount of work, right?

You can print them out yourself. All of the materials you need can be found at redrivercatalog.com. I did a lot of research on the appropriate quality of stock, and these guys really know their stuff. They literally have this stuff down to a science. Their quality is the best out there, they have a great selection, and their customer service is top-notch. They also have a detailed tutorial on how to go about printing them on their help center page.

Paper stock.
I have used their 53lb Premium Gloss. It comes pre-scored so all you have to do is print on it and fold it on the score line, and you’re done. As of this post it was $25 for a box of 100, a real bargain. If you are pressed for time you could always run down to the office supply store and pick up a few packs of Avery® Inkjet Half-Fold Greeting Cards with envelopes. They are $12.49 fro a pack of 20, so they re not nearly as much of a deal, nor are they of the quality that redrivercatalog.com offers.

Envelopes.
Redrivercatalog.com also carries a wide variety of envelopes. Just make sure you are getting the right size for the card.

Boxes.
To make this a more memorable gift, I’d very much recommend these clear-top boxes to place the greeting cards in. They really add a professional touch to the gift.

If you or are going to shoot some photos specifically for this gift, here are three very basic tips for better composition in your photos.

1. The rule of thirds. If your composition were divided into nine equal parts, illustrated by the diagram, it is often most aesthetically pleasing to place your subject not in the center, but along one of the lines or their intersections. Placing your subject in the center often creates a very static image. Moving your subject up, down, or to the side of center usually creates more energy and interest. Here is a site with the rule of thirds explained with examples. Horizon lines should not cross the center, but across the horizoantal lines in the illustration.

2. Fill the frame with your subject.

3. And along with tip 2, simplify the composition. Cut any extraneous elements out of the frame that really have no added impact to the final image.

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Homemade Gift Idea #96: Homemade Personalized Photo Calendars

aniccaph — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:10:49 +0000

In response to a request made on the Facebook page, I decided to make this homemade gift ideas post. Personalized calendars make great homemade gift ideas because they are so easy to, well, personalize.Basically you take your own photos and print them on the back of dated calendar pages get them bound at Kinko’s (err… Fedx Kinko’s, FedEx Office, or whatever it is now) and you are done.

Now there are a few ways you could go about this. The easiest, but most expensive and less “homemade” way is to take 12 photos to Kinko’s, and have them do all of the work. You can also upload your photos to Kinko’s calendar site here, and them pick them up at a later time. I worked at Kinko’s many years ago, and I remember doing tons of these every holiday season. They do a pretty good job, but it is a bit expensive, I think they start off at $19.99.

Another option is to use these homemade calendar kits from Red River Paper. However, their kit includes a digital template on a cd that is openable only in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. The people at Red River Paper are great though, and their quality is outstanding. I have ordered from them many times for homemade postcards and greeting cards that I have printed and given as gifts.

If you want to spend less money, and have the satisfaction of doing them yourself then use the following process:

1. You’ll need to download calendar templates to print out. There are tons out there. Just Google “free 2010 calendar templates” and you’ll find a large variety. For this tutorial, you’ll need a template will fit on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper landscaped… meaning when the paper is turned so it is wide and not tall, like in the bottom half of the photo above. I personally like the templates here at calendar template site for Microsoft Word. If you are using a Mac and you get the message that your operating system does not support it, ignore the message and download it anyway, because it does.

2. Print out your calendar pages.

3. Compile your photos on your computer. Horizontal photos work best, becasue the pages will be situated horizontally. You can use vertical photos, but there will be a lot of white space on the left and right when you finish.

4. Now here is the tricky part. You need to print your photos on the back sides of the calendar pages so that when flipped they appear right side up in relationship to the monthe below it, like in the above photo. Also, if you want a particular photo to go with a particular month, say a halloween costume photo to go with October, that photo needs to be printed on the back of September. If you haven’t done this before, it might take a few tries, so you will probably end up wasting the first couple of pages. It will make sense the more you do it.

5. For binding the calendar I would suggest just going to Kinko’s to have them coil bound it. It costs four or five dollars per bind, but they do a good job, it looks nice, and I think they still put a clear protective cover on the front and back for you. And unless you have a comb binder at home this might be the only option.

There are other ways to make homemade personalized calendars that don’t necessarily involve using photos, and are more “homemade”. I might do another post on other options another time.

Thanks goes to the Facebook fan that suggested this homemade gift idea.

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Homemade Gift Idea #98: Homemade Refrigerator Magnets

aniccaph — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:13:37 +0000

Here is another pretty easy homemade gift idea. You can have a lot of fun doing this, and is easy for kids to participate in. Refrigerator magnets can be delightful for people to receive because you really can personalize it by using photos that are unique to each gift recipient. You can use photos of their children, their favorite musician or actor. If the person is into birding, you can use images of different species of birds. If the gift recipient is into astronomy, you could use images of a galaxy. The important thing is to think about here is who is receiving the gift, and what are they interested in.

Materials
Flat glass gems can be found at Michael’s, or your local craft shop. You can also find them at online retailers like wholesalersusainc.com They come in a wide range of sizes and colors. I would stick with the clear 1/2 inch to 1 inch varieties, as the magnets will support them better, and they have a more gem-like appearance at a smaller size.

Magnets..
Avoid the thin sheet-like adhesive magnets as they will not support the weight of the glass well. I would recommend strong 3/16″ non-adhesive thick circle magnets. I found some at Michael’s, and at save-on-crafts.com. You also might want to try your local craft store or hardware store.

Adhesive..

Any strong clear adhesive from your local craft store will do the job, but I have found that Diamond Glaze Adhesive dries crystal clear and bonds very securely.

Images…
The fun part is finding the images that will suit the gift recipients. You can clip them out from magazines, use some of your own photos, or download free images from a royalty free site like everystockphoto.com. You’ll want to get the part of the image down to a size so that it fits the diameter of the glass marble. There many ways to do this on the computer. If you have a program like Photoshop just go up to the Image menu, go to Image Size and just enter the size there. If you are using Windows’s Paint, use the square selection tool to draw a box around your image and drag a corner point to resize the image to the desired dimensions. In the application Preview on a Mac, go to the Tools menu, select Adjust Size and enter the size there. I think there are ways to do this in other programs like Microsoft Word, as well as many other ways, or just cut the photos out of photos or magazines

The process..
Putting it all together is quite easy.
1. Cut out your photo to fit the diameter of the glass marble gem.
2. Use the clear adhesive to glue the face of the photo to the flat side of the glass marble gem.
3. Let dry… it shouldn’t take too long but refer to the instructions on the adhesive tube.
4. Glue the magnet to the back of the photo.
5. Let dry and your gifts are done!

I had a lot of fun making these homemade gifts. It would be fun to get kids involved in this, because they probably would have a knack for find some fun and funny images and ideas to use.

Homemade Gift Idea #98: Homemade Refrigerator Magnets is a post from: 100 homemade gift ideas