Required Calendars

So, as everyone else puts up pics of their delicious Christmas cookies and gingerbread houses, I am stuck at the computer. You see, when my children were much smaller, I started a tradition that I was unaware would become an annual requirement; calendar production.

I started off just choosing 12 photos to become the photo page for the personalized calendars that you can have printed at various copy stores. Each month only had one photo, however, and that just wasn't gonna cut it for long.

After a couple of years of the one-photo-per-page type, I decided to create my own collages to have the copy store produce into my annual calendars. They happily did that, but I still was not completely satisfied...wasn't there a way I could produce these things on my own?

The next year I set out to do just that, purchasing photo/graphics software (The Print Shop), ink and paper so I could make the calendars just as I wished. A comb-binder is also a must (and can be quite expensive), so I have one of those, as well. Financially, it does not save me any money to make my own, but I have much more freedom to create them as I please, adding our family birthdays and special holidays to the month 'grids' (which costs extra at the copy stores, by the way) and using as many photos as I wish.

Here is this year's results, sans the grids.



These calendars will reside at the homes of both grandmothers and in my husband's office at work. The kids like to have one in their rooms, as well, and I like one in the kitchen. That equates to quite a bit of printing, but with the new computer and printer, it has been fairly uneventful.

Oh, and as a side note, the slideshow came off without a hitch with the new software I purchased (DVD Photo Slideshow Professional). Unfortunately, due to copyrights, I cannot upload the finished product here or on any social utility (I used wonderful music as background, but to post it here would violate some copyrights apparently.) If you are doing any type of slideshow, whether for family photos or in a professional arena, this software is perfect...I highly recommend it.