Christmas Gifts

With fall on the way (or here, in some places), I'm starting to think about the holidays -- even Christmas. I like to give photo gifts to grandparents, who really don't feel the need for any more "things".

Here's a super-fast mini album I did last year. I found a wallet size photo album at Michael's with the right initial and altered it a bit. Then I took scans of layouts that I already had on my hard drive, put them with some quick text inpsired by the Live Good book, and slipped them into the photo album. Voila! Done in about an hour. And if you make multiple copies, even less per album!

On a few pages, I slipped in just photos.

Now I need to decide what to do for this year. I think I may get out my soldering iron and try some photo jewelry, similar to this:

Calendars are also great gift, because they combine a scrapbook with something that is used daily. Designer Digitals has basic calendar grids (and is having a sale right now!) and Two Peas In A Bucket has some adorable mini calendars.

And if you really want easy, Heritage Makers has pre-designed calendar templates -- just pop your photos in, tweak the design (if desired), and the calendar is sent to you (or directly to the recipient). It doesn't get much easier than that!

Or you can roll your own and print them at home like I did a couple of years ago using 8.5 x 11 paper and a combination of paper and digital scrapping. One of the nice things about this is that when the year is over, you can take the calendar tops and slip them right into your scrapbook.