Friday, December 12, 2008

Easy Last Minute Affordable Gifts

Hi, are you in a tizzy, strained budget, gifts to buy but can't afford to or just can't find something fun and meaningful for your special ones? Here are my favourite easy last minute ideas for this Christmas.

First of all, it is so easy to make a music photo montage, I do it using my Windows Photo Gallery, first of all you load photos from your SD card, camera, or scan images onto the computer. Then you select the photos you want to have in the montage (like a slide show set to music), you also import your favourite song from audio file on your computer and ask the computer to auto format it for you. It is easy and spectacular, my favourite creations this year is a montage of all my fathers best paintings set to the music 'Vincent' (Starry Starry Night). I also did one of all the children in the extended family - beautiful and cheeky, funny shots, set to Bobby Darrin "Call Me Irresponsible", it was an instant hit, and you can make multiple copies so all the relies can have their own copy.

Secondly I like to burn cds of my favourite beautiful songs to share with my special friends, I make a beautiful cd cover for the album and write a note sharing any special memories I have of the songs, what they mean to me, so that they stimulate thoughts and memories of the recipient. All you have to do is put a blank cd in your computer, tell it you want to burn an audio cd, then when you are in your Media Player, you simply drag songs to the burnlist, and click begin burn when you are ready. It automatically calculates how much time/space you have left in the cd so that you can fill it most effectively. It is quick and easy.

For free email greetings, I like smilebox www.smilebox.com you can send photo postcards, photo albums and scrapbook layouts with personal photos and text, even slide shows of up to 400 photos. It is wonderful, they are always adding new designs for you to pick from.

A friend sent me an elfyourself dancing elf video with her photo loaded onto the video clip, it is hilarious and you can make your own elfyourself and other movie clips with the site, through JibJab or OfficeMax.

Don't forget that you can frame or laminate children's art, or have it printed onto t-shirts, teatowels, cushions, and quilt covers. Of course the cost goes up as you move through that list (the quilt cover would be the most expensive, but a wonderful gift even for the child who drew the art to begin with).

Stocking Stuffers: candy canes; mobile phone charms; melts (from Dusk); bubble bath; textas and pretty pen sets; nail polish; small soft toys; 2009 diaries; bookmarks; scorched almonds; Christmas ornaments; stickers; boutique jams and marmalades; lotto tickets; sets of Christmas cards, for next year (I give these to my mum, she especially enjoys the homemade ones); shortbread; and CD singles.

I hope this helps you to find the beautiful and easy gifts that surround you, good luck and happy creating, love Starry

2 comments:

JLS said...

Hi,

Thanks for sharing your creative ideas on a unique holiday gift, "Music Photo Montage". Good job.

Starry said...

Hi, thanks, I love making the m-montages, easy and fun!