Making a Photo Calendar

I took lots of photos when our friends from France were here this past summer - no surprise really - and thought that making a photo calendar would be a great present to send them for Christmas.  The postal deadline is fast approaching and I'm just putting the finishing touches on their calendar.  From my experience making a photo calendar using Smilebox is really no more complicated than blogging and is a very personal gift for someone special.  

A couple of months ago I decided I wanted to see what other types of calendars you could make using on-line or purchased software.  I googled and googled and was very surprised with what I found.   Even the most popular companies showed very few examples of finished calendars and many of them involved a lot of on-line scrapbooking.  While I admire scrapbooking done well, it was more work than I was interested in doing.  The reason I like Smilebox is that it provides pre-set layouts and you just drop your photos into the layout for a very professional looking finished product.  I'm sure you can guess that I used Smilebox again this year.

I wanted to show you just how easy it is to produce fanastic calendars (and I'm not being compensated in any way by Smilebox for writing this).  You can read a previous post with some tips for making great Smilebox calendars here.

To get started making a Smilebox calendar you need to up-load your photos.  In the screen shot below you can see my up-loaded photos down the lefthand side of the screen.  Don't hold back when you're up-loading photos.  The more the merrier is the rule so you can try different photos in various layouts to see what looks best.

Layout for three photos - 

Speaking of layouts, you can choose ones for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 photos.  There are five different layouts if you only want to use one photo - but where's the fun in that.  If you want to use two, three, or four photos there are two choices of layouts and if you want to use five or seven photos then there is only a choice of one layout for each.  I have included screen shots of both of the layouts for three photos so you can get an idea of how the layouts vary.  The layout above is in the "personalize" mode for adding and adjusting photos, while all the other screen shots I included show the layouts in the "preview" mode.

Layout for three photos -

Did you notice that the font colour is different for each month.  The last thing I do before I finish a calendar is to go through and match the font to different colours in the photos on that page.

Layout for four photos -

Layout for five photos - 

I love how the name of the month goes across the photo in the layout pictured above.  However, it wouldn't do to have July written across someone's face, so you have to carefully choose the right photo for that spot.

Layout for seven photos - 

I'm off to load the calendar onto a memory stick and take it to a local photocopy store to have it colour-copied onto cardstock and cerlox binding applied.  Then it is off to France with a couple of candy canes (did you know they don't have candy canes in France).  Joyeux Noël to our lovely French friends and may you enjoy a little reminder of Canada every month.

Linked to Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple

Baby Name Wizard Book

Even as a young child and teenager I wanted to be a mother.  I would spend my spare time create imaginary families and then designing homes for them.  Sometimes these homes were small cottages or trailers and sometimes they were enormous country houses.  My imagination was fueled by what I was reading or where we were traveling at the time.  I would create a family, including the ages and names of the children, and then I would plan a house for them. 

My parents bought me many books with house plans in them which I loved and poured over and used as the basis for some of the houses I was planning.  In a bold move, my parents also bought me a baby name book for Christmas when I was 15.  Crazy, eh?  I mean who gives their teenage daughter a baby name book.  However, I loved that book and spent hours reading it.

My daughter, Kate, also loves names and a few years age we were just as crazy as my parents, and gave Kate The Baby Name Wizard book.  

She also loves it, and uses it to name her families on the SIMS.  I just thought I would mention this book as it is so much fun to read and if you are expecting or know someone who is (or you play the SIMS) you would definitely want to search out a copy.  I recently found out there is a website:  The Baby Name Wizard.  It is a treasure-trove of info - definitely worth pouring over.

This book is in a class of its own because it organizes names into categories so if you like a certain type of name, you can search that category for others like it.  It also gives suggestions for sibling's names.

I also like the description and history of the names - she is always positive about names - even the yucky ones.  There is also a little graph showing how popular the name was over the past 100 years.  All fascinating stuff to someone who loves names and had to give each of her children 3 given names!

How to Improve your Photos with Picnik

 
I think Picnik, the on-line photo editing site, is the best thing since sliced bread.  It really is amazing what it can do to improve your photos and I've only been using the free section of the website!  Before I put any photos up on the blog, I first put them through Picnik.  I'm sure some of you have discovered Picnik already, or use similar programs, but for those of you who have not found Picnik, I thought I would introduce you to it.  

Here's a basic overview of what you can do (I'll demonstrate with some of my photos as we go along).  

First go to the website http://www.picnik.com/app#/home. When you are on the "Home" tab, you can upload photos from your computer. 

You will automatically be on the "Edit" tab when a photo has been up-loaded.  The first thing I always do is click "Auto-fix" on the left side.  I would say that it improves about 90% of the photos.  Some don't need it and others it makes them worse by changing the colours from what they should be.  If it makes the photo look worse, then you can always click "undo" over on the right.

The next thing I do is decide if the photo needs to be cropped or rotated.  The rotate function is brilliant if you are a bit cock-eyed when you take photos and the horizon isn't level (tell me it happens to you too). 

  

Then I decide if I want to adjust the exposure or colour.  You can also re-size the photo and get rid of red-eye. 

Then I sharpen the photo.  Initially, I was sliding the sharpen button all the way over - I mean, who doesn't want a sharp photo - but my daughter told me that you can over-sharpen photos.  Who knew?  If you are getting white lines around things in your picture, you have over-sharpened it.  Now I usually do about 1/4 or 1/3 of the way along the slider and the effect is much better.  I also zoom in to check how sharp it looks.


Just remember that if at any point you don't like how you changed the photo you can just press "undo" on the right side.


Once you have done the basics to make the photo purty, you can do more creative things with Picnik.  When you click on the "Edit" tab along the top you can add text, put a frame around the photo, do different effects, and add stickers.  There are both free features and some that are labelled "premium" which you have to pay for.  Although I haven't paid for a subscription yet, I find there are still lots of features that are fun to use for free.  I may up-grade some day as it is still very reasonable.

My favourite things to use in the "Edit" section is putting frames around photos.  It was literally months before I discovered that you can combine frames for an even more interesting effect.  For example, I have started using a white border around my photos, followed by a drop shadow.  You have to do the frames one at a time and press "apply" after each one.  I used that effect for the mosaics at the beginning of this post.


When you are finished with editing your photo you will need to save it.  I just change the name by adding a letter after the number so I know which ones I have edited (and how many edits I have done by which letter I am on).


The other feature, I have used a little bit, is under the "Library" tab.  Here you can make small collages.  To do so, you need to click on the "start" button, that has a little ladybug beside it, on the left side.  Then select "Make a Collage".  Select the arrangement of Basic collages that suits the number of photos you want to use.  Then up-load your photos (you can only do 5 photos at a time if you are using the free version) and drag them in to the blank collage frame. The collage frame can be altered in size, dimension, and colour and size of frame.  Then all you have to do is save it when it is finished. It took me several months to discover that you can make a collage, save it, and then go back to the frames and put a frame around your whole collage.  

It really is a picnic using Picnik (you knew I had to say it). 

My Exercise Plan

This folks is my exercise plan:
 

She needs walking twice a day so hubby and I take turns - he does the morning walk and I do the after-school one.  It usually amounts to about 1 kilometre every day - and that is about the extent of my exercise plan.

Did you know that Google Earth can take your exercise plan (well if it's anything like mine, anyway) to a whole new level.  William, who is quite the computer whiz, recently showed me a feature on Google Earth that has helped make me measure how far I walk.

Here's how it works.  You open Google Earth and zoom in to your neighbourhood.  I have kindly plotted out a route for Michelle Obama to walk her dog, Bo, around the White House. 

 

You go to tools (along the top left side of the page), then to ruler (in the drop down list), then to path, and then you click along your route.  You can adjust your measuring system from miles to kilometres, to nautical miles, or even smoots (who wouldn't want to know how far you walk in smoots).  


I now have several routes charted around our neighbourhood, of varying lengths, so I can do different walks depending on how long I have.


How about you, what's your exercise routine?  Anyone else like to walk the neighbourhood?  



p.s.  Just want to remind everyone to join in my first giveaway in honour of the Olympics.

Signature

I just made myself a signature using My Live Signature.  In case there are others out there in blogland that are just figuring things out, I thought I would pass this along.  Once you have selected your signature style, you choose the size, colour, and slant.  Then you save it and are given an HTML code that you can cut and paste into your blog (Dashboard>Settings>Formatting>Post Template).  

It's that easy!

I heart my Smilebox calendars

Yellowstone Park, Wyoming - Old Faithful

 

I used Smilebox recently, to make several calendars, and I have to say I love them.  The program was easy to use and created fantastic calendars.  You can pay for monthly or yearly subscriptions to Smilebox, or if you are only trying it out, it is free as long as you cancel your subscription within the 2-week trial period.

All you have to do is select your frame layout according to how many photos you want to display on that page, up-load your photos, drag the photo into the frames, adjust the photos, and save it. Once the calendar is made, I put it on my memory stick and took it to my local Staples to be photocopied.  I had them colour photocopy it onto cardstock (I asked them to pump-up the colour), and then had a cerlox binding put on.  The whole thing was $10 and change (and that's Canadian dollars).

Although I loved the finished product and the program is incredibly goof-proof, there are a few things I wish Smilebox would improve.  I wish there were a greater variety of layouts.  Although there was usually a choice of a couple of layouts, depending on the number of photos I wanted to display on each page, I sometimes found that not enough.  I usually used 3, 4, 5, or 7 photos per page (for some reason, 6 is not an option), so frequently I had to select the same layouts.  I would also have liked the option of making the kind of calendar that has the pictures on the top page and the days in a grid on the page below, so that I could record appointments.  The last thing on my wish list would be the ability to zoom out from photos so that more of the photo fit in the frame provided.  Often when you slide your photo into the frame, only a portion of the photo shows up, as the openings do not match the size of the photo. While you can zoom in, I would have liked the option of doing the opposite, by reducing the size of the photo, so more of it showed up.

near Smithers, British Columbia, Canada

Having said all that, I found the program really easy to use (I should point out, Smilebox has not asked me to write this review, I do not work for them, nor do I know anyone who does). Using it, I created professional-looking calendars that are wonderful mementoes.  One of the calendars I made was from the photos of a trip I took last summer with my parents and youngest son, driving from the Toronto area out through Yellowstone Park and then up into northern British Columbia to visit my Dad's hometown.  It was a fantastic trip and the calendar reminds me of all the wonderful sights we saw.  I'm looking forward to re-living the trip throughout the coming year, month-by-month.  I also helped my daughter make a calendar from her trip to France this past summer, and I helped a friend make one of their recent trip to Newfoundland.

Giverny, France

Having now made several calendars, here are some tips I have for would-be calendar makers:

• I tried to have a common theme for each page so the calendar has some cohesion.  For example, I filled January with prairie photos; February with Scotts Bluff, Nebraska photos; March to July are various Yellowstone Park photos; and August to December are British Columbia photos. Together, the photos show the progression of the trip.
• I made sure to adjust the colour of the name of the month to coordinate with my photos.

Mont-St-Michel, France (the colour of the word October coordinates with the colour of the door, window trim, and ocean)

• I also tried to mix pictures with close-up details and more distant shots.

Scotts Bluff, Nebraska (The wagon wheel tracks my son and father are walking along were made by the pioneers. Amazing!)  Here I used a combination of close-up photos and distant shots.

• by sliding the photo around and using the zoom feature I was able to focus on the best parts of the photos and edit out non-essentials or distracting parts. 
• I made sure to have a balance of colours in the photos.  For example, if all the photos are soft ocean photos, it would be jarring to have one photo with bright beach towels.  It would work though, if the same bright colours were in a few of the other photos.

 

Saint-Malo, France (notice all the soft greys and blues in these photos)

Smilebox is definitely a program I will keep in mind to use again.  There are a lot of other features that I could see myself using - photo invitations, for example.