Personalized Home Sweet Home Gift Hack

I wanted to share this great DIY craft that I made for my Mom this year.  Don't worry, we celebrated Christmas early, so she has already received her present, no surprises will be spoiled here.  The great thing about this gift is that it takes a little bit of work, but can be done in a pinch and requires very little creative ability. 

First, find a picture frame with a matte that you want to use.  Note the size of the picture that will fit inside this frame.  Most of the rest of the steps will be done with a computer. 

Then, we need a picture of the front of the house.  It would be preferable to have a high-quality picture from a decent camera taken when you are there.  In a pinch, however, you can use StreetView on Google Maps to get it.  There are many ways to do it, but I would recommend putting your browser into Full Screen view and using the Print Screen button on your keyboard to capture the image.  Capture more than you will need, because we'll crop the image later. 

Next, clean up the picture using PhotoShop or a similar program.  I removed the mailbox, the electric box and the shadow from the neighbor's house with PhotoShop Elements.  

Copy the cleaned-up picture into PowerPoint.  Right click on the image and choose Format Picture.  In the Picture Color section, adjust the Color Saturation and Color Tone as you see fit.  I ended up leaving the Color Tone alone but bumping up the Color Saturation to 240%.  Check out the difference!  

Under Artistic Effects (still in the Format Picture settings), select the Paint Brush setting, and adjust the Brush Size to your liking.  I used a Brush Size 6. 

Use the Insert function to create a rectangle on the same slide.  Right click on the rectangle and click Format Shape.  In the Size section, change the height and width to 8" and 10", respectively (or use the dimensions of the picture frame you got, if different).  Make the Line Color black or something else pretty visible, and change the Fill to No fill.  Use this frame to center the image to show the best parts of the house.  Once satisfied, you can crop the image to the same size as the rectangle, and then delete the rectangle. 

Zoom out in the slide view, and then grab the corner of the graphic to stretch it proportionately to a much larger size; this will improve the quality of the print later on. 

Because my family has moved quite a bit, I thought it would be fun to show the coordinates of all our recent homes.  I've changed them for this blog, but you get the idea.  If you don't want to show multiple coordinates, you can just show the current one.  What you probably need to know is how to get these coordinates.  I found this handy website that converts the address to latitude and longitude in decimals: http://www.latlong.net/convert-address-to-lat-long.html,  and then a tab on that same website converts those to degrees, minutes and seconds with directions: http://www.latlong.net/lat-long-dms.html.  

Note, sometimes it can be hard to remember all the old addresses.  In two cases in my experience, I couldn't remember the address but I remembered the street name and city, so I looked for it on Google Maps, and then used StreetView to go up and down the street until I found the house that looked like mine.  Google Maps will then give you the address of the house you are virtually looking at, and you can go from there. 

Create a text box centered over the image in your PowerPoint file, and put these coordinates in there.  Adjust the fonts to your liking, but I would recommend sticking to a simpler font for a bolder statement. 

You can use different tag lines for this gift.  If you had multiple coordinates, you can use the same tag line I did, "Wherever we live, it’s HOME SWEET HOME with you!"  Here are some other ideas for multiple coordinates:

Wherever you go, there you are!
Oh, the places we will go! 
Home is Where You Are

If you went with just one set of coordinates, consider one of these tag lines or similar:

Home Sweet Home
Home is Where the Heart Is

Make sure to center your text and adjust the spacing to fit in the image without blocking the main features of the house.  We're going for a big, bold effect, so make the font bigger than you think it should be, details will be lost in the overall picture. 

Once satisfied with the finished graphic, copy both the image and the text box(es) and paste them into Microsoft Paint, PhotoShop or similar.  Save the graphic as a jpg.  

Finally, use your favorite photo printing service, like SnapFish, or go to the Walgreens or Walmart websites or similar, and upload your picture for print.  Select the size print to fit in your frame, and have it printed.  I haven't used photo printing a lot, but I know Walgreens is usually pretty fast, so in a pinch, that's where I would look to print.  You can usually pick up your order in a few hours.  Once you have the print, just slide that puppy into the frame and put a bow on it or wrap it completely.  Bam! 



Want more great hacks and crafts? Check out my book on Amazon Kindle! 

Design Hacks for Disney Themed Rooms

Creating Pin-able Graphics (Hack)

Pinterest is an amazing home of flowing ideas and viral images perpetuated by self-described addicts.  Known for identifying more recipes and crafty ideas than one could ever conceivably actually create in a lifetime, Pinterest is also a great place to share business ideas, especially for entrepreneurs, and lifestyle ideas.  Pretty much anything with a picture can be pinned, and that's what makes Pinterest so powerful - its a way to organize, keep and refer to ideas, places and things we saw in this insanely overwhelming information overload we call the internet.  I have written previously about how to put Pinterest to better use, because I believe that its potentially has been largely untapped for individual users.  Now I'd like to spend some time on how to drive traffic to places outside of Pinterest by creating awesome graphics that show up well on Pinterest.   

Step 1 - Tools

As with many graphic design requirements, I use PowerPoint to collect images and I want to use and manipulate them into a collage of text, shapes and pictures.  You may also want to check out canva, at least for inspiration or to throw something together quickly, but in my opinion it is not ready as a tool for complete creation yet.  My recommendation for Pin-able graphics is to start with a blank presentation and use the Design ribbon to set the Slide Orientation to Portrait (longer vertically).  

Step 2 - Sizing

Limit yourself to about a third of the page.  If you don't have Guides and Gridlines activated, right click on the background to do so.  Set the vertical guideline to 1.25 to the left of its default center position (drag it to he left until it says about 1.25).  This little box is your working area. 

Step 3 - Search

I use Google images search to find the images I need, or at least inspiration.  If you plan to overlap a few simple images, you may want to use the Search Tools

to limit your search by Color to Transparent.  What this does is essentially filter on images that Google thinks has a transparent background - its not always perfect but it will get you better results in general. 

Step 4 - Crop, Remove Background, Rotate, Manipulate

Once I find an image, I copy it and paste it into my PowerPoint slide.  Then I may want to crop the image or I may need to do some processing to remove the background.  If there is a background that you want to remove, the most recent versions of PowerPoint have a powerful Remove background function under the Picture Tools ribbon (note, you must have the image selected for this ribbon to be visible).  Older versions of PowerPoint have a Set Transparency Color function available, in which you just select the background color and it makes it all transparent.  I'm also a fan of rotating graphics slightly to give them a more exciting look.  Sometimes keeping them straight portrays a more sleak, streamlined look, which may also be what you're trying to accomplish, so play around with rotating and decide which will work best for you. 

Step 5 - Keep Building

I repeat this until I have the images I want to work with.  Then I add text to go along with the graphics.  Consider putting the text at a slight angle with the rotation tool, especially if you left your graphics straight.  Or add shadowing or outlines to the text to make it stand out from the graphics.   

To make really long pins in Pinterest, build down that section we created to the end of the slide.  I caution not to make the graphics much longer than this, as really long pins tend to be annoying to users and will graphically be shortened

so you lose part of the graphic if it gets too long.  Keeping it about the length of the slide ensure that most of your graphic will be seen, and it will take up a nice amount of the screen when viewed on a board or on the home screen of Pinterst users.  

Step 6 - Export, Place it and Pin it

When you are happy with how it looks, you Ctrl+A to select all, and copy, and then open Microsoft Paint and paste it in there.  Be sure to adjust and crop as needed, and then save the graphic.  Place the graphic where you want the Pin to direct users to on your webpage, and then Pin it to one of your boards to get the ball rolling.