How to Create Gifts for the Holidays that are 100% Unique

When it comes to making truly unique gifts for your loved ones, it’s all about adding a little personalization…and a lot of heart! In honour of Make a Gift Day on December 3rd, our Photolab Experts are sharing their tips for crafting your own holiday gifts that have that personal touch your giftees will surely appreciate this holiday season.

While you may be familiar with gifts like our mugs, which can be customized with your own photos, did you know we can also customize those items with your artwork too? Our free Take and Create Books offer easy-to-use templates inside that will help you design your own personalized bookmarks, buttons, face masks and 11oz mugs featuring your drawings!

Look for our Take and Create Books the next time you’re in the Photolab, or download online!

Just pick up your free Take and Create Book from your local London Drugs Photolab (or download it online here), pull out the art supplies, and stretch your creative muscles filling in the templates! Or let the kids have some fun with drawing in their own designs. Once you’re all done, bring the book with the coloured-in templates back to your local Photolab so we can scan them and print them on your desired item. Or, if you have a scanner at home, you can simply scan and upload the image files to our Photolab online!

Or you could colour in your own design for one of our 11oz mugs, using the template below – also found in the Take and Create Books.

Ready to start crafting your own uniquely personalized gifts? Visit your local London Drugs Photolab to pick up your free Take and Create book or download it here! Don’t forget – you can always personalize mugs, and much more with your own photos too.

To get ahead this holiday season, our Photolab Experts encourage you to order your personalized gifts early to ensure they arrive in time. Don’t worry though – for those procrastinators, we have a great selection of our Photolab products available for same day or next day pickup, up to Friday, December 24th including:

Just visit us in the Photolab for details. Happy Make a Gift Day!

Craft Your Own Unique Gifts on Make a Gift Day!

Let Your Kids Be the Artist with our Take and Create Photolab Books

The best gift you can give this holiday season is something from the heart. That’s the inspiration behind Make a Gift Day, which is celebrated on December 3rd each year. Make a Gift Day encourages us to hand craft our own gifts, employing a little DIY skill and whole lot of love, to create something entirely unique and thoughtful.

With Christmas just around the corner, Make a Gift Day is the perfect opportunity to make some extra special Christmas gifts for your loved ones. Don’t worry if you’re not an expert-level crafter – we’re here to help!

Our London Drugs Photolab can print your photos, and customize all kinds of creative products like mugs and fleece blankets with your photos – but did you know we also print your (or your kids’) artwork on these items too? All we need is a paper copy of the artwork, and we can scan it and put it on any of our creative Photolab products.

To celebrate Make a Gift Day and make the process of customizing your own gifts easier, our Photolab now has free Take and Create Books for you to use! Inside you’ll find templates for designing your own personalized ornaments, bookmarks and 11oz mugs.

Just pick up your free Take and Create Book from your local London Drugs Photolab, bring it home, and let the kids have some fun with drawing their own designs on the templates. If you fancy yourself an artist, why not fill in a couple templates yourself, too? Once you’re all done, just bring in the book with the templates you chose to colour in, and we’ll scan each one and create your unique gifts for you!

(Right) Metal tree ornament template

We have all kinds of ornament designs to choose from in the book – from stars and Christmas tree shaped ornaments, to hearts and marquee shapes. When you order your custom ornament, you’ll also be able to choose from a variety of surfaces, including metal, ceramic, crystal and pewter. Our personalized 11oz mugs can be ordered in a selection of colours, or we can even put your drawing on our Magic Mug! This mug will magically reveal your hidden artwork once hot liquid has been added to it.

(Left) Bookmark template, (Right) 11oz mug template

To start crafting your own unique gifts, just visit your local London Drugs Photolab to pick up your free Take and Create Book!

Make a Gift Day: Craft Your Own Personalized Holiday Gifts for Loved Ones

Photolab Gift ideas

With the holidays just around the corner, it’s fitting that December 3rd is Make a Gift Day. Let’s think of it as a subtle nudge to get started earlier this year. This unofficial holiday encourages people to hand craft gifts for loved ones. After all, that little bit of effort to personally customize a gift goes a long way to making it special.

Photos are a great way to personalize gifts.  You’ve likely captured hundreds if not thousands of them over the year, so why not put all those memories to good use? Do some digging through your virtual photo albums and see if you can find some gems to work with.

Even if you don’t consider yourself Pinterest-level crafty, our Photolab can help you tap into your creativity and produce personalized photo gifts.

Here are some of our favourite DIY gifts for the holidays:

Photo Mugs

Personalize a mug with a special photo or artwork. It’s an easy, inexpensive gift that shows you put some thought into it. Find step-by-step instructions for adding photos or text to a mug on our Photolab website or at our in-store Photolab kiosks. Photo mugs are available for same day pick-up. If you want to order in time for the holidays, make sure to get your order in by December 24th.

Photo Mugs

Hand Print Mugs

Have the kids create their own handprint artwork on pieces of paper, which can then be digitized using an at-home scanner. Or visit us in the Photolab, where you can use our self-serve scanner, or have one of our LDExperts scan it for you. Then you can upload those digital files to our Photolab site (or use our in-store kiosks) and customize special mugs with that artwork, to be given away as holiday gifts.

Personalized Stockings

If your family does stockings every year, a fun pre-Christmas gift to make would be personalized stockings for everyone. Brand new to our Photolab, we have a selection of different Christmas stocking designs to choose from. Customize one for each member of your family, by choosing a design, selecting a photo of your choice, and adding their name (you want Santa to know who he’s delivering to). Then we’ll do the printing for you.

Personalized Stockings

Photo Ornaments

Photo ornaments are a gift that will show the recipient just how much you care. It’s something that can signify a special moment or milestone in their life, and they can hang it on their Christmas tree year after year.

Our Photolab can help you create your own customized photo ornaments. You pick the design: metal, crystal, ceramic or pewter, in a variety of shapes. Then choose a design template that fits your giftee perfectly. We have everything from baby’s first Christmas to first Christmas as Mr. & Mrs. Then, you can add the right photo, and get as creative as you like by editing the colour scheme, text and layout. Knowing you put the time and effort to customize every aspect of the gift will make it that much more meaningful for them.

 

We hope you’re feeling inspired to use your images to make fun and personal gifts that your friends and family are sure to cherish. We have lots more items you can customize. Just check out our Photolab site to see them all, from bobbleheads and crystals, to photobooks and blankets.

Need a hand getting started? LDExperts at many of our Photolabs are hosting workshops throughout December to help you personalize your holiday gifts. For workshop locations and times, click here.

 

Holiday Order Deadlines

A great selection of products are available for same day or next day pickup, up to Sunday, December 24th including Enlargements, Canvas Gallery Wraps, Express Books, Photographic Calendars and Mugs. See a Photolab expert for details.

Be sure to place your orders for the below products before the listed dates to ensure Christmas delivery.

Photobooks, Calendars and Traditional Greetings Cards…………Sunday, December 17

Creative Products………………………………………………………Sunday, December 17

Crystals…………………………………………………………….……Sunday, December 17

Crystallize-it 3D Photo Crystals………………………………….Wednesday, December 13

Yes Video……………………………………….……………………..Saturday, November 25

 

If you need some help creating your holiday gifts, our Photolab Experts can answer any questions you may have, and walk you through the ordering process. Just visit us at any London Drugs location, in the Photolab department.