Picture this: creative holiday gift ideas
By Emily M. Leeson
Giving and receiving gifts can be two of the best parts of the holiday season. But often the sentiment is lost in crowded malls and parking lots. You can avoid the lines and keep your focus on loved ones with these personalized holiday gift ideas. With a little help from your PC, digital images can be transformed into gifts that will bring smiles to everyone on your list.
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Gift ideas for kids
Playing cards
"Go Fish" and card tricks are classic pastimes for kids. Playing cards with flare can only add to the fun. This year, stuff their stockings with a personalized deck of cards made especially for them. Kids will light up when they see their own face on the Queen of Spades or the Joker!
Creating personalized cards is easy with Digital Image Suite 2006. To insert pictures of the kids, in the Common Task pane of Digital Image Suite 2006 Editor, select Create a Project. Select Photo Crafts and then click Playing Cards. You will be guided through a step-by-step process to add your own photos to the cards. For best results, use cardstock when printing to give your cards the weight and feel of the real thing. Also, check to make sure your printer accepts cardstock.
Put the faces of your little ones in playing card templates found in Digital Image Suite 2006.
Snow globes
Snow globes capture the magic of the season; these are easy to personalize as well. Plastic snow globes with insert slots for photos can be purchased at many craft stores.
Open a photo in Digital Image Suite, click the Format menu, and select Resize image. Depending on the size of the snow globe, adjust the dimensions of the image so it will fit in the globe. You can use the Effects menu within the Common Task Pane to convert the image to black and white, create the look of a watercolor, antique the photo, or adjust the hue. Then click Insert and select Text from the drop-down menu to add a personalized message.
Print your finished work on photo paper, then cut it out and insert the image into the snow globe for a fun gift or decoration.
Gift ideas for family
Calendars
The holidays are the perfect time to start ringing in the New Year: twelve months of birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and celebrations. Instead of tracking these occasions on a store-bought calendar, create one with photographs of your family.
There are hundreds of calendar templates in Digital Image Suite. With four different formats (one week, one month, 12 month, or year), you can send each family member a calendar filled with memories and birthday reminders made especially for them.
After you choose a template, learn how to make calendars with your own pictures. Select individual snapshots or create photo collages for each month of the year. Then insert them into the calendar template.
Choose a template to match your loved one's interests and style.
Restore old photos
Remembering family history and keeping current ties strong is especially important during the holiday season. Restoring family photographs is one way to do this but can be an expensive process. Instead of taking tattered photos to a professional photo shop, restore them on your own PC.
Scan your photographs onto your computer and you're ready to restore. The Touch Up tools in Digital Image Suite will clear the dust, remove the scratches, and illuminate the past in all of your aged and treasured family photographs.
You can complete the whole project at home. Then print your retouched photos through MSN Photos.
Use Touch Up tools in Digital Image Suite to remove scratches and dust, bringing new life to old photographs.
Gifts ideas for friends
Photo stories
The holidays are a great opportunity to catch up with old friends. Using Photo Story for Windows, create a photo story to illustrate a year in pictures, then burn the story onto a DVD and send it to your friends near and far. You can also save a copy of your story for e-mail or the Web. If you have never created a photo story, don't fret! Learn how to create your first Photo Story.
Once you have produced your masterpiece, your friends will be able to view it over and over again using Window Media Player or their DVD players.
You can even add captions and music to photo stories.
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