What, you still haven't come up with a holiday card idea? Here are a few of my holiday photo card concepts from previous years. If they help you out in a pinch consider it my gift, through Kodak, to you!

#1 - Your Family circa 1100AD

I saw a piece of stained glass from the 1100's hanging in the Louvre in Paris and it gave me inspiration for my annual holiday card. I ran pictures of each family member through an Adobe Photoshop filter to get line art of the faces. Then I made a line art drawing of the family and added the faces to it. The distorted perspective of the medieval design matched my drawing ability ;-) I also added icons and imagery relating to each family member (look for them). Now, here come the neat parts: first, I used the cloning tool in Photoshop to transfer the colors of the glass from the 1100's to the line art I made. This way the colors looked like the original and not just solid flat colors. And second, I printed it on transparency material so everyone got a stained glass version of the family that they could hang in their window. I was thinking of the person who made that original piece of glass and how they couldn't fathom a use like this some 900 years later!

#2 - Simple Photo Ornaments

This one was easy compared to the previous year. I made a collage that contained several ornaments for the Christmas tree tree. I included four hooks on each card. All that was required was a pair of scissors to clip them apart. This, as well as ideas #4 and #5, was output on various kinds of photo paper. I created these to fit in one of the largest envelopes possible, A12 which is 11-1/2" x 4-3/4", that still qualified for normal first class postage.

#3 - On the Cheap "Interactive" Card

A variation on the theme from the year before. Again, scissors to clip apart the card to make a spinning top with the kids pictures on it (toothpick not included), a book mark, and a refrigerator magnet. I bought sticky magnetic stuff and placed a piece on the back of that section, in this case a quote from Gandhi, of each card.

#4 - The Amazing Photo Paper Airplane!

This one took some engineering to pull off. First, I made a paper airplane and colored each side of it with a different color. I then unfolded it. I used this as my key - where the red showed up I placed pictures of one kid, green another, and so forth. I did this in Photoshop. When the completed photo plane was folded pictures of each kid showed up on that part of the plane.

#5 - CD Jewel Case Photo Calendar

Are you looking for a use for those extra CD jewel cases? I made them into calendar/picture frames using seasonal pictures that I had taken over the years. I cropped and trimmed them to fit in the jewel case. I included some instructions to show people how to make the frame. I also included a mention of my Kodak Easyshare Gallery account to view larger version of the photos, with captions, used in the calendar

I have been sending out cards for more than 20 years in a row. My list has grown quite long but I find it a rewarding experience to connect with friends that are scattered to the four corners of the Earth each year at this time.

If these 5 ideas are too involved for you during the crunch of holiday activities you can alway sfallback to traditional photo cards. There are more and more options to choose from each year.

So, what I am doing for this year's card?

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To acknowledge Veteran's Day here in the US I wanted to share a piece of my family history.

While my grandfather was a soldier in World War I he wrote many letters to the proverbial (and literal) girl next door, Marion, who would later become his wife - my grandmother. I took these letters, many written from the trenches in France, scanned and transcribed them. I then created a document that I gave to various family members as a keepsake. I used a scanner and the "text" scene mode of my digital camera (Kodak, of course!) to add the original letters to the book. I also included a number of photographs and other artifacts that helped build out the story. Postcards from Paris and Vichy, photos from before, during and after the war. There was even a swatch of canvas he had cut from a downed German aeroplane when human flight was still in its infancy.

Click on these thumbanails to view larger World War I items.

I marvel at the technology I used to help put this story together. My grandfather could not have imagined how his thoughts and ideas would transcend beyond the mustard gas and muddy trenches of a terrible war to become part of a family's legacy some 90 years later.

Attached is a PDF version (1.8 Meg) of the document I prepared for my family. Take a look, perhaps it will inspire you to take the stories from your family and give them voice.

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