Monday, November 19, 2007

Time to Make Your Custom Christmas Gifts!

Only 35 more days until Christmas! I know you don't want to hear about it yet but the time will fly by quicker than you think. If you're planning to make custom gifts for Christmas the time to start is now! I know you may be thinking that a family history book or family cookbook would take too long to put together. Calendars... you can never find enough of the right photos? Here's an idea that's quick to create, inexpensive, very personal, and is sure to get you oohs and ahhhs.

Remember your loved one with a photo Christmas ornament!

Custom Christmas ornaments are a snap to create at CafePress. All you have to do is go the site, click on "Make Your Own Stuff", then "Fun Stuff", then scroll down till you see the ornaments (round or oval) and click on one. The web site will take you step-by-step through uploading your photo and ordering your ornaments. You can literally do this start to finish in less than 15 minutes! And the price can't be beat... $5.99 per ornament! (Plus a small charge for shipping.) These aren't tacky-looking plastic ornaments, they're ceramic. And they are beautiful.


These are the ones I created just last week. Aren't they lovely? I collect Christmas ornaments and I add new ones to my personal collection each year. So these I made for myself, not as gifts. These are remembrance ornaments. I lost my mother this year, and my cat and cousin last year. I created an ornament for each of them that will hang on my tree. On the backs of each, I wrote a short message in permanent marker. I've made some photo ornaments in the past inserting photos into photo-frame ornaments I bought at the store, only to find that the photos had faded by the next year. These photos ornaments won't do that!


Here are some custom Christmas ornament ideas for all you genealogists and family historians.


  • If you attended a wedding this year and took pictures of the bride and groom (you did take your camera didn't you?) you can make the most unique and appreciated "First Christmas Together" ornament they will ever see! A great Christmas gift!

  • How about set of 4 ornaments on a common theme for a friend... say the two of you together over the years. They will love it!

  • If you have vintage family photos you could make a fabulous set of ornaments that will have visitors to your home asking, "Where ever did you get these?". I'm planning to do this with some of my period family photos... one from each decade.

  • Got teenagers in your house? Surprise them with one of these in their Christmas stocking. They'll treasure a photo ornament of themselves with their boyfriend/girlfriend!

  • Never know what to get for your elderly aunt, mother, father, neighbor? Make them a set of four ornaments featuring the faces of their loved ones! Even if they don't put up a Christmas tree they'll find a place to hang them!

  • Even younger children and preteens will get a kick out of receiving a photo ornament with them and their BFF (best friend forever)!

  • You could do a set of travel photos from places you've visited. You can enjoy them on your tree now and pass them down to your children or grandchildren as a remembrance of you in years to come!
The possibilities are endless. The pleasure they bring will be as well.

A bit of advice if you decide to create your own custom ornament. Keep to simple photos. Close-up portraits with solid backgrounds work very well. You can use an image that has a whole scene in it but people will have to lean in close to see what it is.

Ready to get started? Here's the place...




Now go get creative with your genealogy!

2 comments:

Susan K said...

Was just thinking that the little box would do well printed out and strung with string and hung from a tree. Now, with your fambly ornament, I'm wondering how it would work to make a hybrid of the two, somehow. Hmm. Hmmm. Hmmm. :)

Cheryl said...

I'd been thinking of doing these, but ran out of time...was going to do them in frames, but this is a cool idea. I submitted this to the next blog carnival.