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

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.