Day 2 – Can’t Miss Christmas Gift Ideas – Photo Calendar (Updated for 2016 – 2017)

Day 2 of my Twelve Days of Custom Photo Gifts series is here, and this is definitely a gift I plan on giving this year. I made custom photo calendars for my entire family last year for the last two five years, and they were such a big hit, I already had requests to make this an annual tradition from the moment they received them! I don’t mind people telling me what they want – why rack my brain trying to think of gifts that may not fit, may not be to the person’s taste and will likely get returned? What’s great about custom photo gifts are that they are always appreciated and never returned (not that they could anyway – ha ha).

Similar to photo books, you can easily put a bit of time and effort into designing a single calendar and then order several copies for everyone on your gift list. When I did mine last year, I made two versions, one for my side of the family and one for my husband’s side. The main images I used were almost identical (I used some of my favorite nature and landscape photos that I took on various trips), the only difference were the sets of birthdays and important events like anniversaries that were included in each version.

Aside from family, calendars could make great gifts for members of an organization, group, school, or club. You can easily put meeting or event dates in the calendar so folks won’t forget any key dates (b/t/w it’s a great idea for a holiday fundraiser too!)

I’ve made photo calendars with Mixbook, Picaboo and MyPublisher. You’ll find my Mixbook calendar review and my Picaboo calendar review via the links. I haven’t reviewed MyPublisher’s calendars for this site yet as the one I made was for a dear friend of mine and I had it shipped to her directly.  She said it came out really nice though.  All three companies (as well as all listed in the chart below) allow you to add photos to the individual dates – so you can put a photo of Aunt Mary on Aunt Mary’s birthday. Nice right? They all also easily allow you to automatically add holidays by clicking to select which ones you want from a list, so no need to enter those on your own.

I was pleased with both my Mixbook and Picaboo calendars in terms of paper and print quality. One thing I really liked about my Mixbook calendar over the others was the ability to add clip art and photos anywhere on the calendar, even on the grid part. You can also upload your own clip art – so for digiscrapping fans, that’s a huge plus. You don’t have to stay within the grid either – similar to Mixbook’s photo book software, you have a lot of flexibility on design of  your calendar as well.

Just as with photo books, if you have your own design software, you can upload finished pages as well.

Below is a chart of some basic specs on some companies that offer calendars. (You know how I love my charts!) This is not an exhaustive list, but will give you some comparisons and pricing. Note that when you order more than one calendar in the same order, shipping costs are reduced. (I’ve updated the pricing and info for 2016 – 2017!)

Custom Calendar Comparison Chart (Updated 11/2016)

Note that these prices below are base prices before any discounts. 30%, 40%, 50% or more is not uncommon!

HOW DO I GET A DEAL ON CALENDARS?

Check my Coupons and Deals Page

Since many of the photo book companies also offer calendars in their product line-ups, I also post these deals along with other photo gift deals on my photo deals page. Additionally many companies will have 40%, 50% and sometimes 60% off site-wide deals which then of course apply to calendars.

Check my Groupon Tracker

Don’t forget about those crazy Groupons and daily deals – you can typically get upwards of 60% off using a Groupon. I keep track of all the photo related Groupons and Living Social deals on my Groupon Tracker page across the U.S., Canada and many international cities, so you don’t have to sign up under every city to find out where the deals are. Remember you don’t have to live in that city to take advantage of an offer. Since these companies operate online, you can buy a deal from Cleveland if you live in NYC. I would recommend that folks stick to their deals within their own country however and be sure to read the fine print as each deal can have different details.

DAY 3 COMING SOON!

Be sure not to miss any of my gift ideas! I’ll be archiving all of them on the main Photo Book Girl gift page as we go through all 12 days so be sure to check back!