last-second chrissy card + gift idea
If there is one thing I'd like to be, it's organised. I'm working on it.
But until then, I'm a last-second kinda girl and all my grand plans for
photo books and photo cards etc always just stay grand plans. When
Officeworks gifted me a voucher with a view for showing some of their
cool customisable items, it was getting way to late to make it, get it
back in time and shoot it for the blog with enough time for YOU to do
the same if you wanted to. Instead, I whipped up a last-second idea for
the parents, parents-in-law, siblings and grandparents so they have
something small, but significant, to open on Christmas Day: a card and photo pressie in one. And when Christmas is over they can discard the card part and keep the pressie - and place it pride of place on the front, centre of the fridge no doubt. It is my family after all :)
I didn't even have time to take a proper picture of the family this year, so instead I waded through my Instagram feed for a bit of a summary of our year. We've got awards, birthdays, holidays, adventures, graduations, new-baby previews and more - a very mini run down of my family's 2013. What I like most about this is that the majority of them are images that will not be seen by the grandparents (and my parents) who wouldn't even know what social media is.
All you need is an image and to run on down to Officeworks for a bit of instant printing. Their instant photo labs allow you to print directly from your phone, Instagram or Facebook account or USB. If you don't have Instagram you can simply create a similar style in Picasa using the grid feature (which is what I did as I added a few non-Instagram pics), save to your phone's camera roll by emailing it to yourself and simply upload that image collage and print it out in a square format. Or print out your favourite Instagram images straight onto the square format if you'd prefer. There are also various sizes, finishes and borders you could play with. It's soooo simple, sooo quick (took me about 5 minutes to do) and sooo cheap (about 70c a square photo). It's also nice to know that physical Instagram pictures can be yours in minutes!
To make it more than just a photo of photographs, I slipped them into magnetic frames and printed out a hand-drawn Christmas motif onto cardstock which I cut smaller than the picture so you could see a border of images around it and slipped that in too with our Christmas message on the back. Tied up with string and slipped into a kraft-paper envelope, it was possibly the easiest handmade Christmas card/gift combo I've ever done. And you still have time to DIY - Officeworks is open tonight until midnight and tomorrow until 6pm in some areas (check your local on the website).
And you just know that there is nothing better than a picture or two or 25 of grandchildren for the oldies to be smitten with you. And while you're in Officeworks, you should most definitely grab something Lego stationery for the kids stockings - they have cool torches and pens and pencil cases all kids who love Lego (so ALL children!) will love. Or check out the simple, stylish X range of stationery.
Wherever you are, however you celebrate and whatever you do these next few days, enjoy yourself! Have a wonderful, safe, happy, merry, everything-good Christmas.
Officeworks gifted me with a voucher to help spread Chrissy cheer and gift ideas. The project idea, images and words are my own. Prints, envelopes, magnetic frames and pen are all from Officeworks.