Homemade Gift Idea - Personalized Photo Calendars

Personalized calendars make great homemade gift ideas because they are so easy to, well... personalize. Basically you take your own photos and print them on the back of dated calendar pages, get them bound at a place like Kinko's (err... Fedx Kinko's, FedEx Office, or whatever it is now) and you are done.

Now there are a few ways you could go about this. The easiest, but most expensive and less "homemade" option is to take 12 photos to Kinko's, and have them do all of the printing and binding. You can also upload your photos to Kinko's calendar site, and them pick them up at a later time. I worked at Kinko's many years ago, and I remember doing tons of these every holiday season. They do a pretty good job, but it is a bit expensive. I think they start off at least $19.99.

If you want to spend less money, and have the satisfaction of doing them yourself, then use the following process:

1. You will need to download calendar templates to print out. There are tons out there. Just Google "free calendar templates" and you'll find a large variety. For this tutorial, you'll need a template will fit on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper landscaped, meaning when the paper is turned so it is wide and not tall. I personally like the templates at the calendar template site for Microsoft Word. If you are using a Mac and you get a message that your operating system does not support it, the downloaded file should still work provided that you have an archive file expansion program like Stuffit. Your Mac might even have an application already built into the operating system.
2. Print out your calendar pages.
3. Compile your photos on your computer. Horizontal photos work best, because the pages will be oriented horizontally. You can use vertical photos, but there will be a lot of white space on the left and right when you finish.
4. Now here is the tricky part. You need to print your photos on the back sides of the calendar pages so that when flipped they appear right side up in relationship to the month below it. Also, if you want a particular photo to go with a particular month, you'll need to print that photo on the back of the previous month. For example, if you want a halloween costume photo to go with October, that photo needs to be printed on the back of September. If you haven't done this before, it might take a few tries, so you will probably end up wasting the first couple of pages. It will make sense the more you do it.
5. For binding the calendar I would suggest just going to Kinko's to have them coil bind it. It costs four or five dollars per bind, but they do a good job, it looks nice, and I think they still put a clear protective cover on the front and back for you. And unless you have a comb binder at home this might be the only option.

There are also tons of online companies that will put them together for you. All you would have to do is upload your photos to them.