Gift for the Grands

A few years back I saw a blog post about creating a photo countdown to National Grandparents Day using this unique photo collage holder (similar to this item at Urban Outfitters.)  I went right ahead and bought two of the photo holders.   

I couldn't tell you what blog featured the idea or when exactly or what store I actually bought the photo holder from (if only Pinterest had been around then!)

This happened when Alex was about one month old.  I had only the best intentions to do something creative for Alex's Nana and Grammy. 

After languishing for two-plus years in my miscellaneous craft supplies bin, I finally used the photo holders this past December and created photo advent calendars for our loving grands.  

Starting December 1 and each day after until Christmas, they were to remove the decorative paper and "reveal" a new photo featuring Alex (and I threw one ultrasound photo of Ellie in there too.)  I selected photos from the whole year and tried to get a good mixture of silly photos and more serious ones from our family photoshoot.

So at the end of the month, each Grandmother had 25 new photos to keep and display and I instructed them to return the photo holder to me so that I could create their advent calendar again in 2012.

I used two different Martha Stewart designer paper pads for the paper, that way each photo advent calendar was slightly different for each grandmother, but they still each got the same photos.  After cutting the paper down to 4x6" rectangles, I ran them through my printer using my new favorite font.  

It was a bit challenging finding the right photos that were also oriented correctly to fit - typically, most of my photos are in a landscape orientation.  

And let's just say, with my typical OCD tendencies, I spent way too much time determining which paper design would go where. 

I think each grand enjoyed revealing a new photo each day - that is unless they cheated and revealed them all at one time.

Comments

[JoAnn]

You are such a clever girl!

L,J

[melanie]

what an awesome idea! i know two sets of grandparents who would love something similar. especially considering andy's mom makes the girls advent calendars and puts the treats on each year. :)

[SMS]

Very cute & thoughtful idea!