Clever Photo Calendar Gift Ideas

A personalized calendar is a brilliant way to make a gift that will be enjoyed by everyone you love for an entire year. For under $20, that’s a lot of bang for your buck. Here are some of our favorite ideas for including friends and family in a fun and easy yearlong endeavor – using your Mixbook calendar as the project guide.

Resolutions Month by Month

Create a calendar that highlights a goal for each month. Even if each goal is multifaceted, try to give it one overarching name, which you’ll print big at the top of the calendar. Then break out the facets of each goal into actionable items that you can do each day, week or weekend. You’ll be amazed at how this simple approach takes big nebulous out-there dreams and brings them within arm’s reach so you know exactly what to do when. If you and your far-flung family members are interested in doing the project together, put your heads together to decide what you’re going to focus on each month. Whether it’s financial well-being, stress mitigation, being more loving, or staying in better touch, it’s a great way to steer your intentions collectively – and build reminders into your daily life in the year ahead.

Craft of the Month A wonderful gift for the creative members of your extended family is to use Mixbook’s Krafters Paradise template to create a craft-of-the-month club. Simply choose a craft for each of the twelve months in 2014, then upload pictures and a brief how-to. Add extra personal interest by sprinkling family pictures between craft images to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, etc. To find crafts, there’s no better tool than Pinterest. Search on that site by month and/or holiday, adding a few key words to filter for age appropriateness. Now here’s the cool part. You wrap your calendars up for Christmas, then surprise friends and family by sending a little craft box out on the first of each month. It’s an inexpensive way to do something really creative that will bring joy all year long. The boxes that go out can include colorful pipe cleaners, construction paper, a fun stamp – whatever it takes to execute the monthly project. For loved ones at a distance, it’s a fun way to be on the same page – literally!

Meal of the Month Come up with a specific dish or menu that’s appropriate for each month. It can be a beloved family recipe or an opportunity to take on a new method of preparation or learn how to use unfamiliar ingredients. Upload photos of the food along with the recipe, then accent each month with pictures of everyone participating in the project. Whether you’re actually sharing the meals at dinner parties because you live close to one another – or you’re simply making the same recipes at the same time at a distance, it’s a great way to stir up conversation and common interest. If there are special ingredients in any of the recipes, you can take it upon yourself to send packages including hard-to-find items like pomegranate molasses or pure saffron. It’s a fun way to punctuate the year with little giftables that are thoughtful, relevant and collectively appreciated.

For more ideas, read the posts on how to make giftable calendars and how to create a resolution calendar.

Happy Mixbooking! Happy creative calendaring!