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Make Your Own Calendar!

Use online calendar printers to create brilliant customized calendars

I've quite recently discovered how easy and fun it is to make your own calendar. I have a cool little stand up one for my desk and a larger wall calendar in the kitchen. They're both full of some of my favourite photos from the last year or so and make things really fresh and lively. I don't think I'll be buying a mass produced one for a long time!

Because calendars are basically functional, we forget that they're probably going to be amongst the most viewed 'art' in our homes for a year. Instead of the normal dull and cliched offerings, create something that lets you start each month with something totally original that brings back personal memories!

It's a piece of cake to sort out. Digital technology combined with the best online photo printing companies take the effort out of it. It must have taken me all of half an hour to produce the first one I did (I liked it so much I got another little one for my desk!).

Basically, its: Choose a calendar type - upload images - customise the calendar - hit 'order'! Most of the best professional digital photography printing companies on the web enable you to make your own calendar. I used Photobox and they were great, but there are numerous others.

So, here's a little more in depth look at my experience with PhotoBox. I'll tell you how it's done and what the options are, so you can decide whether you’d like to make your own calendars too!

Free downloadable book, Getting Started With Photoshop, for all subscribers.

What Are the Calendar Types?

At Photobox I was able to choose from:

A3 wall calendars. Big and bold, great for wall space at home.
A4 wall calendars. A nice easy size to find space for in most places.
40 x 15 cm. Cool shape, I think this will be my next purchase! Great if a wall/cork board is already quite full, or down the side of a door.
Magnetic calendars. Stick them on the fridge door!
Desk calendars. Little stand up calendars ideal for home or work office.

What Are the Design Options?

Ok, these were the options with Photobox. I'm sure most of this goes for other calendar printers too:

Having chosen your calendar type you get to customise the image layout. I tended to go for a single big pic/per page with my wall calendar, and 3 or 4 photos/page as a kind of montage in the desk calendar.
There's a range of colour and design options for the background. Select a plain colour or a patterned theme. Watch out here - you don’t want to overkill.

I went for plain white on the wall calendar and a dark brown for the desk calendar.
You can personalize specific days of the month on each page of the calendar with photos and text.

This was a big bonus for me. I don't know if other calendar printers have this option too, but it was definitely an excellent feature of Photobox.

I put photos of friends and family on their various birthdays for instance. No excuses for forgetting them if you make your own calendar!

My Favourite Photo Book Printing Companies

Cookbooks, family albums, holiday scrapbooks, college yearbooks - they can all be made professionally and quickly online.

How Simple Is It To Do?

Really! Actually it's probably the best thing about it. There was no 'working out' phase or 10 minutes wasted just trying to get started.
You simply upload pictures, which are shown on the left of the screen, then drag and drop them on to the calendar, which is in the middle of the screen. The calendar is shown exactly as it will be printed.
On the right of the screen are the layout options - e.g. 1 big picture or 4 little ones - which you simply click on to select.
The uploading of images was a tad slow, but once they're there it’s easy. Plus, having uploaded images, if you leave the website and return later they will still be there! Very handy!
Oh, another thing: You are able to start the calendar from any week of the year. This is handy if you’re a bit behind time!

Summary

I'm really chuffed with my 2 personalised calendars. They were a doddle to make using Photobox and look great. The card quality (250gsm) is decent and the print quality is zingy and bright. Both the calendars that I made took about 5 days to arrive, but this might differ between countries.

I think it's much better to make your own calendar than buy something mass produced! They are personal and fun. Give it a go! PhotoBox were great in my experience, but any of the best online photo printing companies who offer a similar service could be used.

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Make Your Own Calendar!

Use online calendar printers to create brilliant customized calendars

What Are the Calendar Types?

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