How to make a craft Advent calendar and how to fill it

The best ideas for self-designed, individually filled Advent calendars

Whether for children, a partner, grandparents, friends or colleagues: An Advent calendar makes a great surprise gift for loved ones during the festive season. And if you personally fill the Advent calendar, you will have more creative ideas than just chocolates, because you decide the treats!

How I fill a craft Advent calendar

for my friend?

Ideas for filling an Advent calendar:

  • Vouchers (for cooking, cleaning, a dinner at restaurant, breakfast in bed)
  • Tokens (for time, love, surprises, free ticket, a massage, a trip, a wish, …)
  • Jokes
  • Tea samples
  • Spices, chilli,
  • Cinnamon sticks (rods)
  • Perfume samples and similar
  • Creams
  • Jewellery
  • Raffle tickets
  • Bath bombs
  • Fridge magnet
  • Hobby accessories
  • Collectibles
  • Jigsaw puzzles, photo puzzles
  • Compliments
  • Photo stickers
  • Clay
  • Stamps
  • Small colouring books
  • Colourful pins with glitter or scented
  • Stationery (e.g. shaped rubbers)
  • Model cars
  • Craft materials
  • Drawing templates
  • Patterns
  • Small notepads

 

Customising an Advent calendar

Designing a self-filled Advent calendar allows for creative ideas! Choose your favourite pictures and decorate them with winter and Christmas clip art, or design templates! Some online photo printers offer professionally printed Advent photo calendars for self-filling, too.

 

Example: Photo Advent calendar from cewe

To fill the Advent calendar, a pre-cut insert can be pulled out on one side. Many compact treats fit into an Advent photo calendar. For example: small creams and perfumes or jewellery, hobby accessories, toys, and collectible figures. Messages, puzzles or even handicrafts things can be put into the Advent calendar, too.

 

The Advent Calendar from cewe is made of strong opaline with a satin finish and has the dimensions (WxHxD) 48 x 36 x 3.5 cm. The little doors and boxes are of varying sizes:

Day High, cm Wide, cm Deep, cm
1 5.5 5.8 3.5
2 5.5 5.8 3.5
3 5.5 5.8 3.5
4 5.5 5.8 3.5
5 5.5 5.8 3.5
6 5.5 13.5 3.5
7 8.2 5.8 3.5
8 7.2 5.7 3.5
9 7 5.8 3.5
10 5.5 5.8 3.5
11 5.5 5.8 3.5
12 7.0 5.7 3.5
13 5.5 5.8 3.5
14 5.5 5.8 3.5
15 5.5 5.8 3.5
16 5.5 5.8 3.5
17 5.5 5.8 3.5
18 5.5 5.8 3.5
19 5.5 5.8 3.5
20 5.5 5.8 3.5
21 5.5 5.8 3.5
22 6.6 5.7 3.5
23 6.5 5.7 3.5
Christmas day 10 13.5 3.5
Overall dimensions 36 48 3.5

 

If you take a little time to design a custom Advent calendar and select 24 little surprises for your loved one, they will be treated to a very happy Advent time.

New Photo Gift Ideas for Valentine’s Day

Bishop Valentine of Terni is a martyred Saint of ancient Rome. Because of his believes he was executed on 14 February 269. Bishop Valentine married couples and aided Christians which Emperor Claudius II considered a crime. According to legend Valentine gave the newly wedded couples flowers from his own garden. A modern Valentine present for a friend or partner requires a personal touch, that purchased flowers can hardly provide.

Choosing or preparing a gift for Valentine’s Day should be fun – not something rushed through at the last minute. FotoInsight, a leading independent digital photo service, is expanding its range of Valentine’s photo gifts year after year. “Love is a special feeling and it must be expressed in an extraordinary way, Valentine’s Day is the perfect occasion“, states gift expert Ann Green and she asks: “When was the last time you have given your partner a truly unique gift?

Valentines Photo GiftsOnline digital photo services like FotoInsight can help transforming an individual photograph into a Valentine’s present that will be cherished and remembered for years to come:

• Photo cushion with the picture of a loved one, guarantees sweet dreams.

• In lieu of store-bought sentiments featuring cartoon characters, own Valentine’s Day cards with FotoInsight photo greeting cards are another way to say “I love you!”. Photographic greeting cards can be personalised with a romantic poem or a few simple words straight from the heart.

• A picture of the beloved partner in large format? Ideal for this are acryl glass posters: real photographic paper will be transparently adhered to acryl glass which is 5 or 10 mm thick. Acrylic poster prints have shiny colours and the glass provides additional optical depth. They are available in different sizes from 10×15 cm (with stand) to truly big 50×75 cm (optional hanger). Due to their superior humidity resistance, acrylic prints are well suited for humid areas: Ideal for a picture of the loved one in the kitchen or over the bath tub.

Glitter dome with love hearts and own picture “Photo dome with red hearts” a photograph is inserted in the centre.

• Love Crystallised: FotoInsight adds to its selection of photo gifts designed to display and preserve cherished photographs. Valentine’s Day photo gift ideas include crystal photo heart with a 3D laser engraved photograph, picture frames, crystal key rings, pen holder glass block with a laser engraved photograph. Special about the crystal key ring is an LED light to illuminate the engraved image.

• Where Cupid’s arrow strikes there is a story to be told with printed photo books. For shiny love there is now glossy photo book with environmentally friendly varnish from Printing-1 (produced under the environment norm ISO 14001). With a range of creative themes, covers and flexible page layout, these one-of-a-kind coffee table books will help to remember a romantic get-away or the every-day moments shared in vivid colours. The photo book format “original” (18.5×18.5 cm) is available in a printed soft cover from £14.99 (plus p&p).

• The picture of a loved one in large format? Laminated and framed posters look impressive and are ready to hang on the wall. Deco block posters are available in different sizes.

Photo Calendars• Showing love 365 days this year. Daily reminders of love are easy with photo calendars featuring own digital pictures. A photo calendar can start any month of the year. A hanging wall calendar offers room to jot down romantic dinner dates. Photo calendars on photographic paper ensure shiny pictures in true colours. Photo calendar printing is easy and starts from £7.79.

• A picture of your loved one as a canvas print? Printing-1 prints digital images onto canvas, stretched over a wood frame, delivered ready to decorate a wall. The sizes range in flexible 10 cm steps from 30 cm to 120 cm per side (and in any combination of height and width). Photo canvas prints are light, durable and elegant.Photo Canvas

• FotoInsight brings a new meaning to staying at home on Valentine’s Day: to cuddle up with the loved one and a cuddly teddy bear. Adding special effects or text to a digital photograph printed on the teddy bear’s shirt makes it a very personal Valentine’s present.

• The panoramic mug is also available with the inside in red. The FotoInsight Designer software provides templates (for example in heart shape) to print photos onto mugs.

Keywords: photo gifts, heart pillow, Valentines Day, photo calendar, crystal, photo, key ring, Acrylic poster prints, photo canvas, photo heart, gift ideas

Creative gift ideas trump spending power this Christmas!

British families spend on average about £700 on presents for Christmas. Personalisation and creative gift ideas are booming. Style expert Ann Green has put together a list of Christmas gifts available online. The gift ideas range from refined decorative ideas, the practical to family friendly games. They all have in common, that they can be personalised with own images.

Exotic, feminine, raw and functional are according to style agency “bora.herke” the overarching trends for Christmas. With modern online tools Christmas presents can now be personalised to offer individual gifts in fashionable styles.

Awaiting Christmas with a personalised Chocolate Christmas Calendar
To sweeten the 24 days to the Holy night Fotoinsight offer photo Advent calendars with 24 festively wrapped chocolate balls and your own photograph.

Christmas cards don’t have to come of the shelf
Christmas cards with your own interesting or funny pictures are much more personal. Photo services like FotoInsight print photo greeting cards usually in sets of ten as picture postcards or folding greeting cards (with image and text on-print on all four pages) with their envelopes.

Calendars with own photographs
There can hardly be a more obvious Christmas gift idea than a personalised photo calendar, the person receiving a calendar will need a new one every year. Photo book specialist Printing-1 now also offers personalised calendars in different sizes on matt paper or with elegant high gloss coating.

Photo Calendar Discount
With family photographs or holiday snaps it is easy to make photo calendars as a very personal gift ideas. Photographic calendars can be printed in mat or glossy finish in various sizes and formats as kitchens or wall calendars or for the desktop, with space for appointments or with the professional finish on dot-free photographic paper.

Remember all important dates
A photo diary is always a popular gift option as the New Year nears. Some photo print services offer diaries with personalised picture cover, at FotoInsight even the inner pages can be personalised with own photographs and texts. With two customisable photo pages per month a diary is personal and keeps fond memories alive. There is also the option of a school diary for younger people, which following the academic calendar.

Family stories in pictures
With pictures from a family or holiday there will be a story to tell. The ideal medium to preserve these memories are photo books, printed with personal photographs.
Personalised Christmas Gifts with own photograph
Home decoration
Some pictures need space; they will look great as a poster or as a laminated and framed deco block. Laminating posters instead of putting them under a glass frame avoids light reflections, but still protects the colour prints from humidity and UV-light so that several generations should be able to enjoy the poster prints. Both, FotoInsight’s website and it’s Designer software includes Collage Posters and the Collage Canvas feature, to create a print composed of up to 98 images.

Refined Photo Acrylic Prints
Your photo as a stylish Christmas gift. A real, quality photographic paper poster print is applied with fully transparent foil on a sheet of up to 1 cm deep acrylic glass. As light passes through the side of the acrylic it illuminates the image, giving it additional depth and colour brilliance. The quality processing suits it’s use in photographic exhibitions and due to its excellent visual appeal, acrylic prints are used in prestigious art galleries and exhibitions.

Aluminium Gallery Prints
For the Aluminium Dibond a photograph is printed onto foil, which is laminated onto an aluminium dibond panel. This is becoming increasingly popular with photographers to exhibit their work. The images get a shiny finish and are presented on a robust, coated composite panel, withstanding even water splashes. A great way to make an elegant, long lasting print.

Own photographs printed onto canvas, mounted on a wooden frame
A fine present for those with space on their walls is a photo canvas print, Especially photographs which were post edited with artistic effects that look great as an art print. ‘Think Big!’ photo canvas prints are available in online photo shops in a range of different formats and sizes from 20×30 cm to 90×130 cm. FotoInsight offers photo canvas prints with the option of a floating Havana frame. With this frame the fold over the edge of the wood frame is visible and the 3D effect of a mounted canvas preserved.

Acrylic Desktop Picture Frame
With it’s simple and clear elegance, the acrylic photo stand is welcome in every home or office. The photo behind an acrylic glass sheet with acrylic foot is available in the sizes 10×15 cm (6″”x4″”) and 13×18 cm (7″”x5″”).

Photo on a coffee mug
Always popular, simple and economical is a photo mug. As a German beer mug with a a photograph or a panorama print on a coffee mug (with coloured inner side), it only needs one digital image to make a practical present personal.

Cuddly moose with photo
When giving a soft toy with your own photograph, at Christmas it has to be a “photo moose” (with a red cap).

Photo games at Christmas
The picture pairs game “Photo Memo” is ideal for families, as it suits children from the age of 4 years young and unites families and is a real memory trainer. 25 of your own photos (family, holidays, et al) suffice for an individual gift (£12.99 / €€13.99 +p&p), which families can play over the holidays. Photo puzzles too are popular during long winter nights.

Play with nicer cards
When the family gets together over the holidays, playing card games is great fun. A deck of cards with a picture on-print of a loved one on the reverse is an ideal present and guarantees a good hand in Blackjack, Poker and other card games! Recommendation: Buy two decks of photo cards to play canasta!

 

Glossy Photo Calendars for Christmas

Photo calendars are among the most popular personal Christmas gifts in Britain. This year glossy photo calendars will shine und/er Christmas trees, as Printing-1 presents the new high-gloss coating on wall calendars printed with own photographs: http://www.pmai.org.uk/photo-calendars-now-available-with-high-gloss/ . A shiny, personal photo gift and currently with £10 off the first order (voucher code “PRIXUK”)!
Glossy Photo Calendars

The term digital print describes a group of printing methods in which the image is transferred directly from a computer to the printing machine without using a static print form like printing plates. Digital direct print uses systems like Indigo, inkjet and laser printing, which from the standpoint of individual printing offer very good value for money. By selecting appropriate paper, the prints are produced with a matt surface. Applying a polyurethane varnish produces a gloss finish, with brightness similar to photo paper.

Choco Photo Advent Calendars – Cool!

They print a picture which you upload over the Internet onto the photo Advent calendar. 24 little doors conceal festively wrapped, tasty milk chocolate balls:

Photo Advent Calendar with Chocolates

I can’t wait! I have already made photo Advent calendars for my two children and all four grandparents. It’ll soon be the first of December!