Photo collages and books

 I normally send out around 120 Christmas cards each year, so I needed more than the 50 free cards I had received.    Instead of breaking the bank and ordering 70 additional cards, I found some adorable handmade card sets with cute envelopes that I've been buying many years now for a great bargain.
I loved the assortment this year!

 Here's a couple of them:

 

 envelope

 

But I really wanted the photo collage look I had made with Shutterfly, so I decided to try and make my own photo collages for the first time and would add those into my card as an insert.  In the past I've been printing color photos of our year on the Christmas letter paper, but figured it would be less expensive and better quality
to print a few 4 x 6 collage prints than spending all the money on expensive color ink cartridges. I assumed this would make my life more simple. 

Boy was I wrong!    Making the collages was a much bigger headache than I had anticipated so I thought sharing this experience could save other newbies from the same mistakes I made.

First I tried out the collage maker on Picnick.  It was very easy to use, but wouldn't allow me to custom fit the pictures into the slots the way I wanted.  So I had to do a lot of copying and cropping to get the right portions of the pictures to show.  Then when I finally had the collages looking just perfect, I went to print a few samples at Costco and the outer borders of the collage were cut off, removing parts of each image.  I've had trouble with Picnick doing this to some of my regular edited images, which is why I tested out some samples first.  Customer service said the printing problems are still being worked on.....

 1st Picnick collage

 2nd Picnick collage-bottom and top of image cut off on both of them

Next I tried out Scrapblog.   They have really cute designer backgrounds and were very user friendly, but when I went to save my photo collage, the file size was very small and not printable quality.  

and again having issues with borders getting cut off after printing

Feeling disappointed, I decided to bite the bullet and open up my Photoshop Elements 6.  I should have done this first, but being on a time crunch I wanted something quicker and easier than Photoshop. And I was not in the mood to watch tutorials on it.     Their pre set photo collages were terrible so I was left searching youtube for a tutorial on making my own from scratch.  Like I figured, it was not as quick and simple as Picnick, but it worked beautifully and my photos were just as I wanted them to be. Finally a collage where no part of my photo was cut off.    At last I had found the collage I wanted and it printed perfectly in 4 x 6 size!  

 




  But then my OCD kicked in..............
I wasn't happy with not having a black border dividing the pictures.  I could easily add an outer border through Costco's printing options, but I also wanted a black border around each kid.

 

I could kick myself for being so picky now.    After watching a tutorial on it,  it was going to mess with the proportions and possibly make the 4 squares unequal.  (considering that I would be making many different collages to test out I didn't have the time and patience)    There are so many ways to edit photos with Elements,  so I'm sure there must be a better way I hadn't yet learned, but I was tired of searching for a quicker method and opted to find a different collage program.      

I did some googling to find the best collage maker for printing 4 x 6 images, and found Picasa.  After it automatically scanned my computer folders to download my entire image library (not sure why it did that!),  I was finally able to begin.    The Picasa set up was cumbersome and complicated to move and upload images into the collage project area, and the pre sets were not allowing me to choose which portions of the photo I wanted cropped off.   Like Picnik, I had to do a lot of copying and cropping to make the photo work in the photo slots.   By this point I was now regretting not using the Photoshop collage I had made (all because I wanted a stupid border!), but I had now invested all this time on Picasa.

Once I learned how to move the uploaded pictures into the collage maker though, I really liked Picasa, and the images were saved at full quality with nice borders around each picture.   Having them print normal was a big relief and I went ahead and ordered them. 

I really like this Picasa collage but I wish Luke's space had been bigger.
I printed them at 4 x 6 size with no trouble.

 alternate collage I made to switch it up

After all that when I started putting my Christmas cards together, I looked over at my Photoshop collage and realized I liked the look of it better even though it was missing the black dividing borders.  Too late!

   So between all the sites, Photoshop is 

the winner for custom collage making, and Picasa 

the winner for
pre set templates.

The rest of the collages I made were of our 

favorite 2010 moments to go along 

with our Christmas letter:

Nutcracker Ballet collage

 Travis and Lori's backpacking trip and hike to Havasu Falls and Laguna Beach with the kids

 Baila's Alice in Wonderland 6th Birthday Party in April

and having outdoor Mad Hatter tea parties for dinner all week

 Baila dressing as Alice at Disneyland

Next came the Christmas Letter.

Since Travis refuses to write our annual letter, 

I was still left with this project. 

I dislike doing the Christmas letter because 

I detest reading my own writing as much 

as I hate listening to my voice.  

Which might seem odd to say since I have a blog, 

but I think of this more as a journal of my kids, and 

updates for family and friends.

I also enjoy sharing travel tips or any information that 

could benefit others from our experiences when I blog,

 but my writing is mediocre at best.   

There is much more pressure with the Christmas letter! haha

The good thing was that I had only hours left 

to finish my cards to get them mailed before Christmas,

so it forced me to not obsess over it.  ;) 

I threw the letter together as quickly as I could 

and left for Office Max to pick out paper. 

It was four days before Christmas so there were

only two packages left. 

But there on the shelf was exactly what I was looking for!

They had 5 x 7 cardstock  paper in a cute design.  

I wanted my letter to fit neatly inside my card and 

this was the exact size needed. 

Even better it was on clearance 75% off! 

As an aside, Office Max had a steal on

Childrens Hardcover Picture Books, 

which is not a normal item they carry. 

I had picked out 4 beautiful books for the kids gifts and when 

they started to ring up for $1.50 and $2.50 I thought the cashier

had made a mistake.  Turns out they were going for 80% off 

the already bargain sale price.  I couldn't believe it! 

I went back and filled up a shopping cart.  The lady at checkout 

said she was really surprised that I was the first person to take advantage of the sale, 

and wondered when somebody would finally buy them up. 

One of our traditions is to put a photograph from 

something special that month

and write an update letter for each child, and 

place these inside a nice picture book each month.

The kids love bedtimes stories because they get 

to read letters all the way back from when they were babies.

We also do this for friends and family birthday gifts, and 

write a special birthday message inside. 

Now I'm set for the year! 

I went back to Office Max this week to see what became of 

  the books, and they were still there inside the big bins. 

I excitedly filled up my shopping cart again,

but when I went to check out, they were no longer

ringing up 80% off.  :(

I'm going to keep checking back though.....

Here are just a few of the nice hardcover books we scored for $1.50 and $2.50:

(the illustrations are beautiful and the page 

quality is the best!)

Check with your local Office Max to see if they are running the 

special before they are gone! :)