Gift Idea

I think I am finally a grownup because as Christmas approaches I don't really care if I get any presents but I LOVE buying stuff for other people.  I pride myself on being an excellent gift-giver, i.e. you will never get a (lazy) gift card from me; you will always get a REAL gift that you will love.  Sometimes I get so many good ideas that I start passing them on to other people.

So now you are probably like "great, thanks for all the bragging, however I am poor with a limited budget and also suck at gift-giving so what is rubbing my nose in all this accomplishing???"  Don't worry, I am leading up to one of my Very Good Gift Ideas that you can use and can fit into even the most limited of budgets.  And it can work for anyone on your list, for any occasion (not just Christmas).

The Very Good Gift Idea is: a photo collage!  The cost of this gift includes a cheap frame and printing off a photo in whatever size you choose, and maybe the cost of good collage software if you so desire (but not necessary).  It's meaningful and shows that you put some personal time into making it, which is says more than that you put some personal time into buying a gift card.

I have given a few photo collages and not only are they fun to make (because you get to go through all your pictures of you and the person you're giving the collage to and relive some fun memories, etc.) but they are super fun to give.

I'd recommend a program like Collage Maker because it's easy to use and manipulate, even though some of the built-in backgrounds are super ugly.  (I tried out quite lot of free collage software a while ago and this one seemed to be the best of the 4 or 5 I tried.) Choose your photo size, and once the program creates an auto-collage for you, drag the photos to different spots, make them bigger, add borders, and basically tweak it until you have exactly what you want.  Then just save as a .jpg and upload it to Walmart or wherever and go pick it up from the store in an hour (pick up a frame at the same time)!  Collage Maker is just a 30 day trial so I don't know how much they try to charge you once the trial ends, but if it turns out collage making is your calling it might be worth it to pay 20 bucks or whatever for the software.

Try it out!