Create Greeting Cards and Great Photo Gifts

Why go to the drug store when you can make greeting cards and photo items from your own PC?

Remember in grade school when you glued macaroni to construction paper and called it gift gold? It was messy, but was warm, cuddly and showed how much you cared. Macaroni may not fly as an adult, but using your computer, you can put the same kind of time and effort into making dazzling gifts at home—without the worry of accidentally pasting two fingers together to boot.

It goes without saying that there are a variety of services (Snapfish, Shutterfly, Kodak Gallery, etc.) that let you make photo cards, whether you print them at home, pick up printouts at the local CVS or Wal-Mart, or even have them shipped to your door. However, there are also plenty of other ways to send your best without simply slapping it on the front of a holiday greeting or birthday wish.

At Home

If you have a decent printer, there are plenty of programs and services that allow you to effortlessly mock up projects and print creations right at home.

For example: Broderbund’s Print Shop Version 23 allows users to print greeting cards, photo projects, labels, calendars, posters, signs, business cards and stationary. Despite a head-spinning amount of templates and graphics (which let you quickly mix and match layouts and visuals to taste), it’s fairly basic and easy to use. Also, at just $29.99, it won’t put a major dent into your budget like many other graphics programs. If you are a bit more artsy and have a few extra bucks, you can bump up to the Pro version ($49.99) for a wider range of built-in graphics and templates as well.

If you’re looking for a few freebies instead, the HP Creative Studio should keep you busy. While the service offers extensive features (building Hannah Montana scrapbooks, creating Kung Fu Panda paper dolls, etc.) in partnership with Snapfish, Disney, DreamWorks and Martha Stewart, it also has plenty of calendars, cards, and other cute project ideas that take just a few minutes to print and enjoy. Merely upload photos, drag and drop them into your selected template, and click print. Of course, the creators wouldn’t mind if you used an HP printer in the process, but in case you prefer a different brand, the site readily lists any other materials and equipment you might need.

HP Creative Studio Screenshot

Canon also features a competing service, Creative Park, which serves up free 3D paper craft projects, photo cards, calendars, scrapbooking materials and much more.

Whichever method you go with, make sure your printer is up to the task, you have plenty of ink on-hand and the paper or other medium that you are printing to is well-suited to the project and capable of capturing fine detail. Still, given the right materials and a quickly downloaded template or two, your macaroni days should be long gone.

Send it Away

Printing your own photos and other projects provides instant gratification. However, it also sucks up a lot of ink and can often be frustrating if you can’t nicely center photos, tint images correctly or get the fonts just right. So why not have someone else do your dirty work?

To this extent, you can always access plenty of paid photo printing and processing services, such as Snapfish and Kodak Gallery. However, we like Shutterfly best because they’ve got Stephanie Roeder, a professional “Card Stylist.” Sort of like a Dear Abby for the digital world, this regular columnist provides tips and answers questions about picking the perfect card designs, as well as how to take the best shot.

Shutterfly Screenshot

For a homemade, scrapbook-type feel, How Fast They Grow has created the Digi-scrapbook. Instead of dealing with stamps, stickers and little bits of felt, this service allows you to create super-cute collections of photos with text, clip art and any other extras you’d like in order to personalize each project. Once you’re finished, the company will print your creation on 12 x 12 cardstock for $7.50 each. If you want to get really fancy, ribbon-adorned books start at $38.

Want to make your gift larger than life? Whether it’s a big baby picture, a wacky wedding moment, or the winning home run, you can take that image and make it into a life-sized portrait with Wallhogs. There are a few similar services (i.e. Wallbusters), but Wallhogs provides the option of printing on vinyl, fabric, paper or canvas. The last two are the least expensive, starting at $19.99, but for an extra $10, vinyl could be a gift that keeps on giving, because it’s reusable.

We’ve mentioned cards and pages and books aplenty, but there are lots of other unique options as well. Picaboo has a great program that combines photos into personal recipe books starting at just $9.99. Photowow takes any of your personal photos and turns them into Andy Warhol-worthy artwork that you can have printed on a poster, cards, t-shirts, mouse pads, and even an end table. The base cost is $90, but that includes a final proof, and the talents of actual graphic artists. If you don’t mind a bit of arts and crafts legwork, you can create your own version of Photo-Opoly ($29.95) as well. Print up your own photos, use the package’s included glue stick and you’ve got yourself a tabletop board game sure to be a hit on any family game night.

As you can see, creating your own cards and gifts to commemorate special occasions isn’t just simple and cost-effective – it’s also a great way to inspire friends and family, and give any present a personalized touch.