Christmas cards

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I’m making my own Christmas cards this year, as I generally do, but I’m approaching it a bit differently to usual. I used to buy a whole pile of paper and ribbon and glittery things and get all creative with collages. This year, I’m being technological. Go on, say “oooh”.

Step 1: Select 4 digital photos you feel represent bits of your year, or that are Christmassy, or funny, or whatever you like to express with your cards. My cards mostly go to family members, so I used photos of a Christmas tree, the kitties, our wedding, and a casual shot of us on our honeymoon. (The first casual shot I used was vetoed by the Prince, because he was making a silly face. I said, “But it’s very us. These Christmas cards are about us.” I have been reading too many articles about Christmas crafts and the love of family. I then realised I would be fairly pissed off if the Prince merrily sent off photos of me making a silly face to all his living relatives, and chose another photo.)

Step 2: Go to the mosaic maker at bighugelabs.com. If you have a flickr account, upload the photos you want to use into that (you can make them private, and this will still work). Otherwise, you can sign up as a member of bighugelabs, and upload photos directly from your computer.

Step 3: Choose the “thin vertical frames” layout in the mosaic maker, and then upload your four photos at the bottom of the page. Press “Create”, and gaze on your lovely mosaic. If it looks weird, try again with different photos - the “thin vertical” chops some of the photo off, but it’s the only mosaic that fits neatly into a normal sized photo print (6 x 4 inch, I think). If your subjects are roughly in the middle of the frame, the cropping in the mosaic should work well.

Step 4: Save the mosaic to your computer. Open it up in your photo editing program (I use Photoshop, but Paint.Net is an excellent free editing program). Gaze lovingly at your mosaic. Select your text tool, and create a text box along the bottom of the mosaic - I went along the length of the middle two photos. Type a little phrase - I went with the very original “Merry Christmas”. Select a font colour that stands out well against your photos (a nice deep red worked for me), and a nice font (I used King and Queen, which is free to download, and is decorative and funky - I like it). Keep fiddling with the colour and size of your font til you’re happy with the overall look of the mosaic. Oh, and don’t forget to save it as a jpg file.

Here’s an example:

Step 5: Pop your creation onto a CD or flash card, and take it along to a photo shop (or if you’re in Australia, to Big W which I think does the cheapest digital prints I’ve found - 19c each) and order as many prints as you need for all your cards.

Step 6: While your mosaics are being printed, go and buy some blank cards, or some flat card that you’re going to cut and fold into card shapes.

Step 7: Collect your prints, and admire your artistic skills. Stick the prints onto your blank cards, using some decent craft store glue, and then get to work with the hard part - writing in them. Which I can’t help you with, because I’ll be busy trying to come up with something witty and original to write in mine.

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