It’s Time for Christmas in July - Day 14

Planning your Christmas budget and gift giving early helps you to save money, time and energy. With that in mind this week I'll share a few “do ahead” gift ideas you might use for friends and family this Christmas.

Family Calendar

Every family needs a calendar – a place to write appointments, sports, music lessons, birthdays, anniversaries, school holidays etc so making a personalised family calendar as a gift is bound to be a hit. You can add the important and special dates for each individual family and decorate it to suit their interests and you'll have a winner. In fact this is the type of gift that could become a tradition.
Calendars are easy to create on your computer (if I can do it you can too). There are lots of free programs out there to get you started. Calendar Labs is a website with lots of different free calendar templates that are easy to download and edit. And of course Hewlett Packard  and Microsoft  offer free photo calendar templates for you to download. You can insert photographs, insert and edit information for special days and then print out each page
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Create a calendar on your computer and using clipart or scanning in family photos to decorate and embellish the pages and print off as many copies as you need. Or you can buy blank calendars from craft and office supply stores (like Officeworks) and add pictures, photos, stickers etc. and have them copied there.

Add a spiral or comb binding so the calendar will hang flat and flip easily and you have a gift that will last the whole year through.

I've suggested this as a project to start early because if you're going to personalise the calendars you'll need to start now. Don't wait until Christmas Eve to start this project.