A Homemade Gift for Non-Craftsy People: The Photo Calendar

I’m not big on homemade gifts. Not because I don’t like the idea of them—spending less money and being more thoughtful with gifts is great. No, I have trouble with them because I am the opposite of craftsy. You want me to sew something? Sure, as long as it’s somewhere you won’t see it. You want me to cut and glue and finesse something into a wreath or a decorative sign or a Christmas ornament? Sure, as long as you’re okay with it looking like a five-year-old made it. All of my projects are Pinterest fails, and they all took too many tears and drops of sweat to make them worth it.

But.

I have one “homemade” gift that does play to my strengths and has never failed to delight: the photo calendar.

If you’re intrigued by the idea, there are easier ways to do it than how I’m going to describe, but take the basic steps and simplify with better software or fewer extra features as needed.

This photo calendar is for my immediate family (parents and siblings), so starting in October, I ask them to send me pictures (around 25 per family) and then organize the pictures into different months. Every family has their own month, and there are a few other standard pages I always do—a grandkid month, a “funny faces/just plain terrible picture” month, a month with group shots, etc. I always do one wild card page with a specific theme. One year I asked everyone for their celebrity doppelganger and matched family pictures with doppelgangers. One year I pulled funny things family members had said from my quote list and had a page of quotes. I’ve also done months dedicated to weddings, to family photo shoots, and to Halloween costumes, depending on the year.

Once I have pictures organized into months, I get out my trusty and super outdated photo collage app, CollageIt 3 Pro. I do not think it’s supported anymore, so I can’t recommend it, but I’ve always used it and I like their collage styles, so I’m not motivated to find something new.

Once all the collages have been created in CollageIt 3 Pro, saved as PDFs (necessary to get the highest resolution), exported to JPEGs, and triple checked to make sure the photo quality is still clear (I have skipped this step before and had pictures turn out fuzzy), it’s time for the calendar software.

I use Mimeo Photos, primarily because they mimic the calendars Apple Photos used to make (and now don’t, RIP). It’s not exactly cheap, but it’s comparable to other products on the market, and I like the size options. Pop the collages in, add everyone’s birthdays to the calendar, and you're good to go!

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is watching my family members look through the calendar. By the time I’m finished making it, I’ve seen the individual pictures and resulting collages a million times, but I love watching my family’s reactions to them—flipping to find their family’s page, lingering over the wild card page to see everyone’s contributions, laughing over the page of ridiculously bad pictures. I have it on good authority that some of my nieces and nephews insist on taking the calendar down throughout the year to look through it like a miniature family album.

And that’s why I make the calendar, my only homemade gift—I like knowing that I can go to any of my family members’ homes, and we’ll all have the same calendar on the wall. Some of us might live far away from each other, but this shrinks the distance.