I just stumbled on a delightful Mac app called Happy New Year ($10.00 at 24×7digital) that may be the answer for affordable Christmas gifts. With this simple tool you can create calendars in three basic sizes – 4×6″, CD jewel case and calendar case. All you do is choose your size, choose the year and months your calendar will cover and then drag and drop photos from iPhoto to each of the months in your calendar. You can change the font, color and layout of the calendar text and set some background options to give your calendar even more personality. The toughest part of this process is choosing the photos to include for each month.

Calendar samples courtesy 24x7digital

If you choose the 4×6 photo size, you can export your calendar to individual .jpg files which can then be sent to a digital photo printing service to print however many copies you want. Add a cheap acrylic frame to hold the current month’s “photo” and you’ve got a delightful desktop calendar anyone would enjoy. I found Art Display Storage Stand-Up Jewel Cases at Amazon for less than $1.00 each which display the current month and have room to store other months as well. If you’ve got some empty CD cases laying around collecting dust, you can design and print calendars to fit in them – saving even more.

Because this is such an easy process, I’m making several personalized versions for specific family members with old family photos I know they would enjoy. I’m also creating a stack of calendars for neighbors, friends and co-workers. At less than $4 a calendar, it’s definitely got my attention.

Oh, one last goodie. There’s also a widget export feature so you can create a desktop widget to share with your Mac friends. Hmmmm . . .

Tags: calendars, gifts
This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 6:24 pm and is filed under Fun Stuff, Reviews. Both comments and pings are currently closed.