Create A Unique Photo Book As A Romantic Valentine’s Gift
January 26, 2010
Romance isn’t just about candle-lit dinners and boxes of candy with big bows on top. Real romance lies in the personal touch, in showing how much you love someone with a few heartfelt words just for them, or a unique gift that you’ve really thought about and taken time over. We’ve posted several great ideas for Valentine’s gifts already, including a pink Canon camera and a gorgeous canvas print, but if none of those seem just right for your partner, how about creating a unique photo book, celebrating your personal love story, as a truly memorable gift.
Dig out photos from when you first met and once you’ve finished exclaiming over how young you both look, scan them into your computer (unless of course you met recently enough for them to be digital pics!). Find photos that tell your story and bring back precious memories: the amazing vacation you took together, the first house you bought together, your wedding day, the birth of your children, or whatever milestone moments of your lives that come to mind.
Once you have found and selected your photos, it is easy to make a professional looking photo book by laying out your photos together with some text. Write your own messages or add favorite poems and quotes. You can be imaginative and write up your story in the style of romantic fiction, or just add dates and places as more of a factual record, but be sure to include a message of love at the beginning and end, so that your gift has that essential element of romance. You could even add a secret message by placing a single word on each page amongst the photos which put together make up a 20 word message of love. Or create your own unique way of putting together a photo book, there is no limit to the possibilities.
Photo books tend to have a minimum of 20 pages and a maximum of 80, so you’ll need at least 20 photos but can include many more if you lay out several per page. Allow yourself plenty of time to play with the layout and select photos. The biggest problem you’ll have is keeping it a secret from your partner, as you spend hours leafing through old pictures and exclaiming or sighing over the happy memories they evoke!
Mum and Photographer
Put One Of Your Own Special Photos On Canvas For Valentine’s Day
January 19, 2010
Valentine’s Day is just over three weeks away now and if you don’t want to resort to last minute flowers and chocolates as a gift for your loved one, now is the time to start thinking about that special gift that will make their heart glow. When you’ve got young children it can be hard to keep romance alive, but your shared love of those wonderful kids is the glue that holds you together, through sleepless nights and stress, as well as the joys that they bring. The perfect gift for Valentine’s Day could be a gorgeous picture of your young family, celebrating your love by putting one of your own photos of you all on canvas.
There are plenty of other personalized photo gifts that you can create with your photos and many romantic ones too, but a canvas print is one of the most enduring of all. A good quality canvas print can outlast you, its image remaining bright and sharp for a hundred years, so that your grandchildren can still enjoy it. A beautiful photograph of your family, perhaps a mother and baby picture or an informal group of you all, will encapsulate all the love you feel for your family and keep its memory alive for the next generations. How much more romantic can you get than that?
You still have some time left to look through all your photos for the perfect shot, or take a brand new one if you can’t find anything that feels just right. The last day to order for standard shipping is Feb 2nd if you go through Photoworks.
So start thinking about setting up the perfect portrait of your family. Do you just want a portrait of the kids together, or do you want to be in the photo with your partner too? A tripod will make it perfectly possible to set up a photo using the self-timer, but otherwise enlist the help of a friend to take the photo, once you have worked out how you want it. Small kids get bored of having their photo taken very quickly, so make sure you decide on the background and look at the lighting before you get them involved.
Once you have grouped yourselves get your friend to take lots of shots in quick succession and try out some variations. Having everyone looking at the camera and smiling is the obvious arrangement, but try out others too. Attract the kids’ attention and have some photos of you all interacting and looking at each other rather than at the camera. It gives a wonderful intimate feel and can be fun if you get them laughing too. Experiment. Don’t just limit yourself to one session. Try different days and different locations until you get just what you are looking for. You are capturing a mood as well as a likeness, and moods can change from day to day.
Then choose your best shot and put it on canvas for a wonderful Valentine’s gift.
Mum and Photographer
Personalized Photo Gift Ideas for Valentines Day
January 12, 2010
Christmas is over, we’ve cleared away the tree and breathed a sad but relieved sigh that life is back to its dull old routine. No more gifts to buy… but is that true? February isn’t that far away and with it another gift giving day. What are you planning on giving your partner for Valentine’s Day? If you haven’t thought about it yet there is still plenty of time to come up with a special and thoughtful gift. Open up your photo files and then scan the internet for some personalized photo gift ideas.
Here are six gift ideas that leapt from the screen for inexpensive and fun photo gifts for the special person in your life:
1. A photo mug with a heart design – OK, so a mug isn’t very original… but we all use them and you can get some very pretty designs and interesting shapes these days!
2. A mousepad with a photo of you both framed in a heart – It’s another everyday item, but again something that your partner will see every day and which is bound to make them smile.
3. A beautiful cherry wood keepsake box with a photo inlaid on the lid. Put a special photo of you both or of the kids and it will be the perfect place to store precious memories and keepsakes.
4. A silver charm bracelet with a miniature photo charm on it. You can add more charms onto it as you like, perhaps you could add one every year, or else make one charm for each of you and each of the kids, so that the whole family is collected together in a gorgeous miniature photo gallery.
5. A sterling silver photo locket with a monogram on the outside and a photo inside. This could be a wonderful personal gift for the love of your life.
6. If your partner is a wine lover, then buy a very special bottle of wine and make it personal with a wooden photo wine box. Choose a photo of you both to slide into the front of the wooden box with a special message.
For standard shipping, most of these gifts need to be ordered by the end of January, so you still have plenty of time to go through your photo files and create the perfect gift for your partner in time for Valentines Day.
Mum and Photographer
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Snow Makes For Beautiful Art Photos To Put On Canvas
January 7, 2010
Snow is in the headlines, closing schools in the UK, disrupting holiday travel plans on both sides of the Atlantic over Christmas. It seems that snow is just a logistical nuisance, a trick played on us by fickle weather. Kids love snow though, they see it as the magical thing it is, offering us hundreds of opportunities for play, and with its own ephemeral beauty. Next time it snows, grab your camera and your kids and take the time to see snow through their eyes. Snow can be so beautiful and when you look at it through your lens you are bound to get some great photos, maybe even some wonderful art photos that you can put onto canvas to decorate your home.
Snowy scenes have their own mystique, a special atmosphere that makes even familiar landscapes interesting and special. Snow transforms the everyday streets of your town, turning it into a mysterious fairyland. The dullest scene sparkles with a blanket of snow. Capturing a snowy scene on camera gives you the chance to produce gorgeous art landscape photos that will look great blown up large on canvas to decorate your home with throughout the year.
You might want to concentrate on taking landscapes when a new snowfall is still pristine and unmarked, early in the morning, when a few rays of sun break through the clouds and turn icicles to diamonds. Or photograph your kids playing in the snow. Place them as small figures in the landscape to set the scene and then take plenty of photos of them close-up too. Gloved hands making snowballs, cheeks glowing in the cold air, frosty breath curling around them, the exhilaration of a toboggan ride.
The biggest problem with photographing snow is that the camera meter is tricked by so much white and can give you completely the wrong exposure. Plus on a sunny day all the reflections and shadows can look blue and the white balance is thrown out. To help get great snow photos try some of the following:
• Some digital cameras have a winter or snow setting to help get the right exposure.
• On cloudy days you can use the automatic cloudy setting, available on many digital cameras to get the correct white balance, but you may still need to experiment with the exposure to get a good image.
• Try using spot metering to get the correct exposure, centering it on a patch of clean snow.
• Or start off by taking a set of photos where you use the +1/-1 exposure compensation button at half stop intervals until you get a photo that looks just right. Either bracket all your photos over three half stops, or just set your camera to the +/- setting that looks the best on your test shot. But keep an eye on the images you take, as you may need to adjust the setting in brighter or more shadowy settings.
• Of course you can still adjust the color and exposure later in Photoshop, but it helps to get as good an original image as possible, especially when you want to enlarge the picture to put onto canvas.
Last of all, keep yourself, your kids and your camera warm when you are photographing in the snow. Cold can stop the batteries working and create condensation to fog up the lens, so keep the camera close to your body and wrap up warm.
Mum and Photographer
Fun Photo Gifts
December 30, 2009
Are you looking for a Photo Gift that is different? I was shopping for a present for my Mother-in-Law, when I remembered that she had said that she does not have pictures of my sons. Since she lives in another state, I email her pictures to keep up with my sons’ lives. She is not the type of person to print the pictures or upload them to a photo site. I thought a photo gift that shows my sons’ past year would be an excellent idea. I came across a variety of gifts that are fun and useful at the same time.
Home and Office
Looking for a photo gift that is portable? You do not have to settle for a commuter mug; create a skin for a cell phone, camera, PDA, MP3 player, or laptop. This is one way to personalize your electronic device. The stationary department has a large selection to choose from, expand your mind from the photo holiday cards. Use personalized note cards, postcards, stamps, stickers, note pads and notebooks with your favorite photos. Do you want to give a gift that will help organize the office? Purchase a clipboard, desk organizer, clock or mouse pad that has the photo of your choice incorporated in the design. Placemats, trivets, aprons, serving trays, coasters and cutting boards with photos make perfect gifts for people who love to entertain in their home. Blankets, digital photo frames, plaques, photo posters, and photos on canvas are a wonderful way to decorate your home.
Personal Gifts
Ladies always enjoy receiving jewelry; make hers extra special with a photo displayed in the jewelry. Your favorite photos can be placed on t-shirts, boxers, ties and scarves ready to be given as a gift to be remembered. Photo puzzles and playing cards are fabulous gifts for all ages to receive. Most young children enjoy seeing themselves in pictures or their names mentioned in stories. Imagine their delight when there is a whole book with their picture as the main character. This will quickly become their favorite book and one you will treasure for years to come. Are pets a considerable part of the family? You can personalize their collar, leash or food bowl with a picture of themselves or you.
Several of the gifts I mentioned below allow for multiple pictures to be placed on the gift. Some offer the ability for your picture to be placed in a tile design, so the same picture is displayed multiple times on the gift. Since there are so many items that your photos can be placed on, you should have no trouble finding a very personalized gift for everyone on your list.
Buy A Leather Album For Safe Print Photo Storage
December 29, 2009
So Christmas is over for another year and you’re probably still clearing up tinsel and wrapping paper and feeling rather flat after all the rush of the holidays. Why not use this time to take stock of all your photographs. Download everything that you took over Christmas, select the ones you’d like to print, dig out all the prints from the year and start putting together a print photo album, for the safest possible photo storage, before the New Year is upon us.
Keeping prints in a traditional photo album is by far the best way of making sure they are protected, easy to view and accessible to everyone. You can leaf through the pages with your kids, remembering wonderful vacations, fun family moments, memories of when they were younger. If you take the trouble to source archival quality photo albums with acid free pages, your photos will be securely stored for many years to come, so that the albums you have lovingly created will document the family history for the generations to come.
At this time of year you can get some real bargains when it comes to buying yourself some really good albums to store your prints in. The sales have started online as well as in the shops and in particular Exposures have some great deals on their leather albums and photo sleeves.
Treat yourself to a gorgeous Italian leather album that at 14” square is large enough to fit your biggest prints with pages protected by interleaved tissue and which is currently less than half price. Or finally buy that baby album that you always meant to make before your baby turns into a toddler and all those precious moments fade from your memory. Because babies do grow and memories do fade, unless they are captured on camera and immortalized in an album that you can leaf through every so often to refresh your memory.
Don’t worry about creative scrap-booking unless you love that sort of thing. Just buy archive quality print sleeves of the right size for your album and prints and slip each print in. Or buy plain pages and an acid free photo adhesive to attach the photos to the page with a simple layout. Label them with a special acid free pen and you will have an album of memories that will last your forever and bring joy to your children when they are grown too.
Mum and Photographer
Unique Engraved Photo Gifts
November 30, 2009
Are you looking for the perfect gift? No matter the gift giving occasion, an engraved photo gift, creates the personal touch you are looking for. Once you start shopping for your gift, you will have a variety of items you can engrave.
Gift Items
Some of the materials you can engrave are wood, marble, granite, acrylic, crystal and even jewelry. A picture frame can be engraved to enhance the picture you want to put inside. Receiving a photo engraved on a plaque is a lovely gift but letting your imagination take over can create a distinctive gift. Your gift will become a family heirloom whether it is celebrating an occasion or person or a memorial in remembrance of a loved one. Photo gifts do not have to be thought of as woman’s gifts. There are plenty of items that a man can receive.
Men’s gift ideas
The men in your life can enjoy pictures engraved on items such as dog tags, “whiskey” flasks, lighters, key chains and even paperweights. You can have bar ware engraved or have his favorite car picture engraved into a sign.
Women’s gift ideas
Women can receive photos engraved on jewelry, key chains, luminaries, shadow boxes, and picture frames. Capture a particular occasion, such as a wedding memory, with an engraved photo album or DVD/CD case. The photo album cover is engraved and comes with empty photo pages ready to be filled. The photo album and DVD/CD cases that I have seen are made of wood with the engraving on one side.
When engraving you need to keep a few things in mind when picking out the photo and the gift you want to use. It primarily depends on the picture you select. The higher the resolution of the photo, the better the engraving you can receive. You also want to make sure you have contrast in the picture. If your subject blends in with the background then details will be lost in the engraving process. Engraving is accomplished by a laser removing layers of the engraving surface. The laser can be set to a variety of resolutions based of the quality of the original photograph. Most websites state that they can have your gift ready in about a week after you submit the picture you want engraved.
The person that receives this gift will know you took the time to create this gift just for them. Engraving is a way to make sure that your gift will not be forgotten.
Put Stunning Pictures Of Your Kids On Canvas For A Special Gift
November 19, 2009
Thanksgiving is just around the corner with the mad rush to Christmas in sight, but there is still time to be creative with your gifts this year. All too often the last minute rush of Christmas shopping has us buying gifts for our partners that are uninspired, and that a year later have either been forgotten or worn out already. If you want to give your husband or wife a really special and lasting present this Christmas, why not put one of your best pictures of your kids on canvas, as a meaningful gift that will last forever.
A beautiful canvas print isn’t cheap, but it is far better value for money than an electronic gizmo or a few shirts that might not ever get worn. Displayed on the wall of your living room or in your bedroom you will both enjoy looking at it every day for years to come. Good quality canvas prints will last for many years, long enough to be handed down to the next generation, so you can even look at your gift as a family heirloom in the making!
You may already have a perfect picture of your kids in mind; one where you have captured a happy moment, when they are full of life and energy smiling and with eyes sparkling. It could be a close up portrait just showing head and shoulders, or one showing them busy and active in a picturesque landscape, perhaps at the beach during the summer or running through the gorgeous fall leaves.
If you haven’t got a picture you are happy with, then grab your camera and your kids on a dry day (it doesn’t have to be sunny, you can get some gorgeous photos with the soft light of a cloudy day) and head out somewhere pretty; it could be a park or the beach, a mountainside or a the steps of a fine city monument. Take loads of photos of your kids, from close-ups to action shots. Keep shooting more and more pictures and think of fun activities that your kids will enjoy; jumping off rocks, peering into rock pools, hopping down steps, playing hide and seek behind trees. Catch natural shots as they play and set up a few more formal poses in between, while they are full of energy from their games.
You only need one picture for your canvas print, but you will end up with a whole series of fun pictures that you could use to create an album with later too. The hardest part will be choosing which picture to use for your gift. It doesn’t have to be technically perfect, it is the emotion of the picture that is important, so choose one that really conveys a happy feel.
So now you have one of your most important gifts sorted for Christmas and can relax a little, knowing that your canvas print will be delivered to you soon, saving you that last minute frenzy of the mall on Christmas Eve.
Mum and Photographer
Personalized Calendars With Your Special Pictures Make Great Gifts
November 12, 2009
It can be hard to find meaningful gifts for your family in the run up to Christmas. Your children probably have a wish list as long as their arms, but what about your parents and in-laws, who seem to have everything they need already. One thing that everybody uses is a calendar and a perfect way to make it meaningful and personalized is to produce one yourself, using special pictures that you’ve taken of your children over the year. These calendars make wonderful gifts for anyone who is close to your family.
Photoworks has a very simple and easy to use program for designing your own calendar and as they are known for the excellent quality of their printing you are sure to get beautiful results. How you design your calendar is up to you. You can just choose thirteen great photos of your kids and leave it at that. Or you could decide to get more creative and choose a theme. Here are two suggestions, but you can do whatever your imagination suggests.
Following the seasons: Seasonal pictures make sense in a calendar and you can highlight the seasons with your choice of photos of your children too. January and February could have photos of them playing in the snow, or all muffled up in winter clothes splashing in puddles. For the spring months look for photos you’ve taken of them picking spring flowers or on an Easter egg hunt. Summer photos will be easy to find – just sort through your vacation pictures for some great shots of your kids on the beach or at the pool. Fall colors and Halloween pictures come next, and then we are back with winter scenes and of course a Christmas picture for December. You don’t have to restrict yourself to pictures that you’ve taken over the last year. You could include a cute baby picture of your child’s first Christmas several years ago or get nostalgic with toddler pictures of your now school age children.
Family occasions: For this idea you could set up a series of photos of your kids especially for your calendar. Write down a list of important family birthdays and anniversaries. Divide them up month by month and then get older kids to design colorful hand-written notices saying things like “Happy Birthday Grandma” or “It’s my Birthday!” or “Happy Easter”. Find some occasion to remember for each month and if there are more than one make a separate notice for each one. Then take fun photos of your kids holding up the notices with big smiles. Choose different backgrounds for each photo and have the kids change clothes between shots. You can have some photos with two or more children in and others with just one of them, but make sure that they each get the same number of photos of themselves in the calendar, they are bound to count! Only do all this if it sounds like fun for all of you – you want the kids to look like they are having fun too! Once you have put all the photos together you’ll have a really personalized fun family calendar to remind everyone of all the important dates throughout the year.
After all this work putting photos together you will probably want to order yourself a copy of your gorgeous calendar as an early Christmas gift too, and until 16th November Photoworks have a special offer giving two calendars for the price of one, so get creating calendars now!
Mum and Photographer
Archive Your Family Photos In Quality Albums For Long-Term Storage
November 3, 2009
Family photo albums are often the most treasured possessions in the household. They hold countless memories not just for those who took the photos but for the generations to come. Older children love looking at photos of when they were babies and one day their children will love looking at their parents as kids. Storing your photos in quality albums so that they will last long enough for your grandchildren to enjoy them is not always the first thing we are thinking of when we put together a family album, but this is just when we should be thinking about archive quality photo storage.
Putting together albums is often something we never get around to. One day we’ll suddenly get the urge to do it and we’ll dig out all our prints, bundle them into whatever album we have available and tick that chore off the list. Cheap albums and album pages are often made of plastics that give off vapors that will eventually damage our precious prints, fading the colors and eroding the surface. When you are going to the trouble of creating a family album, printing off your best pictures of your kids and arranging them in pages, it makes sense to buy good quality albums and album pages that will protect your photos and keep them in good shape for many years.
Look out for albums and album pages that guarantee archive quality pages. They should be acid-free and lignin-free, as well as being sturdy enough not to warp. A great solution is to buy a dedicated ring binder album which offers a selection of different page styles to suit your preferences. There are pocket pages if you want a quick and easy storage solution for your prints or sheet protector pages where you can layout your photos and captions creatively exactly as you want them. The important thing when you are using a scrapbook approach to laying out your photo album is that you use photo-safe adhesives to stick your photos in place.
So before putting your baby album together or making an album of your family vacation, check the album you plan to use. If it is just an ordinary scrapbook or cheap photo album it will probably display your photos alright for a few years, but if you want to your album to be there for your grandchildren to enjoy invest in an archive quality one to keep your precious memories as fresh and bright as the day you took the photo.
Mum and Photographer
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