With many people to buy Christmas presents for in my extended family, I have to keep my gift budget fairly low per person. One way that I try to extend the money that I spend is by making some of my gifts.
The key to homemade gifts is that you need to start planning, preparing, and creating early, so that there is not a mad scramble at the last minute to get them done. You will either spend the holidays feeling drained from all the extra work, or you will give up and end up buying a more expensive gift, potentially blowing your gift budget.
Several years ago, I started the tradition of making calendars for each of the grandparents with pictures of all their grandkids throughout the months. They love it...in fact, if I didn't give them a calendar this year, I think they would be really disappointed.
My steps to making the calendar are fairly simple:
- I purchase a digital scrapbook calendar kit (see below for some ideas), although many of the photo printing sites have some cute calendar templates.
- I choose which pictures I want to display in the calendar. This can often be one of the most time consuming parts, so I start this early. I also ask others in my family for pictures of their kids to include in the calendar.
- I add my pictures in a photo editing program (I use Photoshop Elements).
- I print it out and bind it. In the past, I have had Office Depot print it and bind it for me, and I've printed it out myself at home using cardstock photo paper. I've had them printed at Costco for only $9.99 plus $4.95 for shipping, and I've used Shutterfly.
- The Daily Digi has a GREAT list of the calendar products available
What kind of homemade gifts do you make for Christmas? Do you have any questions about the calendars? Let me know!
savvysuzie
Love your blog! I have an award for you at mine 🙂
On The Verge
I also make calendars every years with my girls on it but, minI would need to do to make calendars like this?
Thanks!
Lydia @ On The Verge
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Hadley Coble
I did this same thing for my family's gifts! I had Staples bind mine, and I used free digital scrapbooking stuff I found online!
Love your sample page!