Photos on Deck!

Today's post isn't about stocking stuffers per se, but it could be related.... Let me explain! Periodically, Walgreens and CVS offer great deals on photo prints and gifts. And when I say great, I mean great: 25 free prints, a free 8x10, and even a free 8x10 photo collage this last week!

The trouble is, what if you don't have your photos organized? These deals are usually quite time limited -- 3 or 4 days at most from when they're announced until when they end. So what I do is keep my photos "on deck". I tend to use Walgreens for those times when I really want photo prints -- an album commemorating our trip to Japan, so I could actually show it to people easily, for example. One anniversary, I gave my husband a wall-hanging photo frame that actually had seven slots (one for each cat), which was hard to find, so I had a lot of photos printed and then I arranged and re-arranged until I got it just the way I wanted. Because of this, several of my favorite photos are already uploaded to Walgreens website.

Which meant that when the free 8x10 photo collage deal came up this past week, I had photos at my fingertips! I ordered a collage similar to the one shown above, which I will be taking to work and putting up on my metal cabinets with a magnet.

How does this relate to stocking stuffers? You can always put a photo in a nice little frame. Or you can buy adhesive magnet backing and make your own magnet stocking stuffers. Don't forget that Walgreens lets you experiment with your photo images -- you can give them funky borders or neat effects. Or you can experiment with effects -- turning a photo into a "watercolor", for example -- before you upload to Walgreens or CVS.

My point is: be ready for these crazy-good deals when they happen. Have a number of photos uploaded and ready to go, or at least accessible on a Picasa or Shutterfly or other account, so you can get to them quickly. Otherwise it's too easy to let the freebie pass you by because you haven't yet gotten around to uploading the photos from your camera to your computer. I also recommend weeding out bad photos right away -- just delete them! That's the beauty of digital photography, after all -- you can always take more without paying to develop bad photos.