Cat’s Out of the Bag

A while ago, I mentioned that I decided to make something for my siblings and my parents for Christmas this year. Everyone will have their gift shortly, but the ones that are aware of this blog have already received theirs so now I can share what it is.

Last time when I visited my parents, I sifted through some old pictures and then took pictures of them with my camera. My plan was to try to restore some of them and perhaps hand them out to everyone. Well, that ended up being a lot of work and I didn’t get very far because some photos were in bad shape.

I had two really cute pictures of my mom and dad when they were probably around 7 or so. I thought it would be interesting to take those pictures of my parents and take a look at us kids when we were around the same age. I enlisted the help of my mother and she gathered the photos I was missing. I restored the photos, gave them all an antique look and gave them uniform plain backgrounds (the backgrounds got fancier through the years) and then printed them.

I had some scrapbook paper and some stickers so I created a little scrapbook picture of all of us. I mentioned that I ended up spending more money than planned and that was due to the frames. I needed a bigger size than originally thought to do a good layout of the pictures. Bigger frames meant more money, even though I was able to find the frames for half off.

I also didn’t account for the shipping cost. I had some in mind, but it ended up being quite a bit more. Again, I need to get a little bit better with planning if I do something like this again. Sadly, one of the frames didn’t survive the trip and in hindsight I could have packed it better. I’m kicking myself a little bit about that since broken glass wrecked some of the pictures and the paper they were on. You live…you learn.

I hope everyone likes them, or finds them interesting. I thought it was interesting to see everyone around the same age. I’m not usually one to do gifts like that, so it will probably surprise them. I plan on getting one together for our family sometimes soon when I come across more scrapbook paper.

Next year I think we will do more of the handmade gifts. It takes a lot of time and involves a lot of planning to get them done in time, but it felt nice to do. I wanted to do more handmade items this year but we ran out of time. Next year I am planning way ahead.

Posted by Tricia on December 24, 2008 at 12:47 AM in General Personal Finance | Comment First »
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