I'm always looking for creative ways to rescue my photos from the black hole that is my computer's hard drive. Wrapping Christmas presents provides the perfect opportunity to do just that! With a roll of brown paper and a few miscellaneous supplies you probably already have on hand (or can find easily) you can customize presents with your own photos, which is sure to delight your gift recipient. You'll notice that none of these ideas are particularly complicated—I don't know about you, but at this time of the year, complicated is the thing that is sure to push me over edge! 

Photo Tags 

I customized my niece's first Christmas gift with little photo tags of everyone in my family meeting her for the first time! Since she's only five months old, she probably doesn't care whether or not we include photos or a gift tag with handwriting on it, but the photos (punched and reinforced with eyelets in the corners) can be strung on a piece of ribbon and tucked inside a Christmas ornament box for her to enjoy in future years. There won't be any question from her almost four year old big sister as to whose gift this is, either!

Photo Ornament

Scan the ornament aisles at Target or other stores and you'll be sure to find a few photo holder ornaments... grab them (and grab some more after Christmas when they're on clearance!) because they make terrific, easy gift decorations. The gift inside is from my daughters for their Nana—and Nana will be able to move the ornament directly from package to tree on Christmas morning!

Photo Ribbon

I'm always trying to think of clever ways to utilize my Instagram photos—it occurred to me that they would make perfect ribbon when reduced in size! Even if you don't use Instagram, you could easily resize photos to a square and create the same effect. To save time, I made photo mosaics at Big Huge Labs (instead of creating a square or rectangle mosaic, I simply chose to create a one column mosaic) and then copied the strips to my design program and printed them all on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper at home. I adhered my strips with double-sided tape, then added the perfect finish: a picture of a bow! I can't wait to give this gift to my youngest sister, who loves Instagram just as much as I do. 

Which one are you going to try? do you have a favorite?

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