Kicking Of 2021 With A Calendar

Happy 2021 to you! I don’t know about you, but I am hopeful that 2021 returns back to what our old normal was. Don’t get me wrong, there were some fantastic things that happened in 2020, my daughter got married, I brought Plezant home, and I did get to spend a lot of time with my family. So I do feel truly blessed with the good things that happened.

But 2020 surely is a year most of us will never forget, and not for the good things that happened.

But out with the old right?

And while I was doing my daily purge of emails, trying (and succeeding) to entice me to spend my hard earned money, I cam across a deal that I couldn’t pass up….

I LOVE Photography

So as I was rummaging through many emails, I cam across one from Snapfish. Have you ever heard of Snapfish? They are a photo processing company. And not only do they offer affordable printing costs for all of the photos you have, but they also have lots of other photo related items that you can buy, which is what this post is all about. But more on that in a moment.

I take a LOT of pictures. Whether it’s with my phone, or my fancy DSLR camera, I take a lot of pictures. And it’s one thing to have these images saved to my computer or stored in some cloud. It’s a completely different thing to have these pictures printed.

But printing the pictures is just one little piece of bringing the photos to life. The photo is a big part of it yes, but then you have to factor in the cost of the frame as well. And I solve the expensive frame problem by going to the dollar store, as well as thrift stores.

Goodwill has a lot of frames that are a fraction of the price you would pay if you bought them new. But I find the best deals at the dollar store.

Sure the frames are probably some form of questionable foam spray painted, but they work. And for a dollar, they are VERY affordable.

So I went to Snapfish with the intent of buying a bunch of prints for the past year, when I found something really cool.

Kicking of 2021 With A Calendar

When I logged in to my Snapfish account, their main page was pushing wall calendars. And while they make a nice calendar, I couldn’t justify spending $20.00 on one. Yeah, I’m a cheapskate. However, they had a sale going on bringing the cost of the calendar down to $6.99! Well that clinched it for me, and I started planning my 2021.

And I had recently written my personal goals for 2021 (and made a video about said goals)

and with the calendar, I can even put little photos on the calendar section to help remind me of special occasions to remember as well as my goals.

Snapfish makes it very easy to put together your own personalized calendar too. They have different themes, and you can even personalize it more with design elements you choose yourself.

How To Make Your Own Calendar

Snapfish makes it very easy to make incredible personalized items. First, you need an account. Then you simply upload your photos, and then decide what you want to do with them. Right now you can order 4×6 prints for $0.09 each. That’s a great deal. And their photo quality is ok, it isn’t outstanding, but it’s OK. My favorite photo lab for incredible prints is Nations Photo Lab. But the prints are a little more expensive at around $0.56 each for the same 4 x 6 print. But if you want the best quality, go for Nations Photo Lab.

However, for simple prints, Snapfish is acceptable.

If you want to make a calendar, the higher resolution images are the best. If you use smaller images, they might look a little pixilated when they are printed. But they are still pretty good.

Another nice thing, once you upload the photos to Snapfish, they save your albums! So I can go back to pictures I uploaded in 2021, and they are still there! I really like that.

Ok, let’s make our calendar!

So go through the photos you might want to use, and upload them. Then choose a calendar theme. Next, Snapfish will prepopulate where they think your photos should go. You can always change this. You can also play around with different calendar themes until you find the calendar you really want to print.

I chose Painterly Seasons. I really liked the colors, and the overall theme.

Once you have the main photo for the month chosen, then you can go through each month and add important dates for each month. Of course I added important days, like birthdays and anniversaries, but then I also included some of my goals for the year. For example in November I will be having my own No Stirrups November Challenge (more on this soon!)

I also added in some photos to remind me of when I want to have reached specific goals, like entering an online dressage show. So not only do I get to look at a picture that I captured for the month, but I have little photos within the month to remind me of the goals I have set for myself. I really like that.

You can also add text with the photo, a second reminder of the day and why it’s important.

Almost Awesome

I sat down and in about an hour I had completed my calendar. And I was very excited! I had made my masterpiece, and it only cost me $6.99 to get it printed.

The only downside to this is the shipping cost. If I want to get my calendar quickly, the ground shipping is $19.39. Ouch. That’s a lot. But they got me. I crafted a gorgeous calendar that I really want, so I will fork over the $20.00 to have it shipped. Well played Snapfish. Well played.

But in the end it was worth it. And I have a cool personalized calendar I made, and it will help keep me on track to reach my goals for the year.

I have ordered a calendar from them before, and the quality makes it worth it. So now all I have to do is hurry up and wait for my order to get here. January 12^th can’t get here soon enough!