How to Make Personalized Calendar
If you're searching for a clever gift idea for a friend or relative who already owns just about everything under the sun, personalized presents can't be beat. Add the bonus of usefulness of a calendar and you've come up with something clever that will stick around for an entire year. Of course, once the year ends, your personalize calendar project will be past its prime, but chances are it will simply morph from date tracker to heirloom -- as well as a reminder of your kindness.
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Instructions
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Ask friends and relatives for a list of the important dates that will be included in your recipient's personalized calendar: birthdays, anniversaries, Christenings, graduations and weddings. Store this data in a Word file so you can retrieve it fast once you're ready to create the calendar project. Double-check the spelling of all names -- the calendar is going to stick around for a year, and the year will seem even longer if there's a mistake on one or more pages.
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Search your photo archives for pictures. If you're a frequent snapper and possess a stockpile of images, find shots of folks gathered 'round the Thanksgiving table, graduations, proms and other celebrations. Alternately, focus your personalized calendar on faces, using head shots exclusively. If these photos are already digitized, you're ahead of the game. If not, scan and save each photo earmarked for the calendar as a 300-dpi jpeg file.
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Purchase calendar-making software that's platform-compatible at your favorite store or find tutorials and step-by-step calendar-making websites on the Internet. Some sites offer program-specific instructions and templates that allow you to make calendars offline in Word, Photoshop, Quark and other software brands. Others guide you through the process of making your calendar online using templates and prompts. Understand that typical sites provide this "public service" to sell you on their printing services once your calendar is done.
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Load the software you purchased or head to the Internet to access the website you've chosen for your calendar. These sites are pretty foolproof; you'll get prompts that escort you through the project from start to finish. Select a plain or patterned background. Choose between vertical or horizontal layouts. Drag and drop family photos into the appropriate fields and then re-size, crop and/or rotate the images. Copy and paste occasions and other text from your Word list. Drop in stickers (Santa, the Easter Bunny, flowers). When you're done, you'll have created a one-of-a-kind, personalized design.
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Print your personalized calendars only after you've proofed all work carefully. Make certain names match photos, dates are double-checked and the layout is exactly as you wish. Call a couple of instant printers if you decided not to order the printed calendars from the website you used to create it. You also can take your work on a disk to stores such as Target, Wal-mart, Walgreen's or the photo section of another pharmacy for printing. You may even be able to upload the calendar art to the store website and pick up calendars after they've been printed and bound.
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References
- Photo Credit Brand X Pictures/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images
