A Canon DIY Holiday
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. A time for decorating and baking, sledding and skating, visiting family and observing traditions. It’s also the season for perusing holiday gift guides and picking out the perfect gift for everyone on your list. Grab your camera, plug in your printer, and let Canon help you spread the cheer with these holiday gift ideas.
Make Your Own Cards
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah or another winter holiday, customize your season’s greetings with a one-of-a-kind card. Home photo printers give you the flexibility to create customized cards in various sizes and designs. PIXMA printers even include Canon’s free card template: we look after the artwork; you share your holiday spirit. Canon printers offer the flexibility of handling numerous paper sizes and stock options. Printing on glossy paper gives the card a nice shine; on matte paper makes it easy for you to fold and the receiver to display. Not the crafty kind? Visit Canon Creative Park for great pre-designed Christmas options, including pop-up cards.
Print Your Own Tree Ornaments
Adorn the tree with DIY decorations. Canon Creative Park offers dozens of designs, from the traditional – Christmas trees, stockings, snowmen, Santa and his reindeer – to the whimsical, including a Christmas hedgehog and Santa behind the wheel of a souped-up red car. Download your favourites and print them on your Canon home printer. The degree of difficulty for each varies, so why not enjoy a little friendly competition assembling them. Fastest time gets first taste of the Christmas cookies.
Design Your Own Wrapping Paper
It can be as simple as downloading your favourite holiday patterns, choosing your paper size and stock – plain paper works well, but something thinner may be easier to fold – printing and wrapping. For extra-personal paper, upload some images from holidays past. Use your computer’s editing program to set the size of the paper and lay out a grid of your photos. After printing your handiwork, position your favourite image on the top of the gift, wrap the box and tuck it under the tree.
Create Your Own PJs
Deck out the entire family in matching pyjamas. Pair store-bought flannel bottoms with a custom-made iron-on transfer T-shirt. Create your own design using any graphics software application. Print the design on iron-on transfer paper (complete instructions should come with the paper) – use light transfer paper for white and light-coloured fabrics, dark transfer paper for darker fabrics. (Tip: Print your design on regular paper first to make sure you’ve set up the printer correctly.) Iron your shirt before ironing on the transfer (removing wrinkles ahead of time ensures a smoother transfer), then iron the transfer on to your shirt. Finally, set the self-timer on your Canon digital camera – or use the free Canon EOS Remote app – pose everyone by the fireplace and immediately share your photo with family and friends.
Set Up a Virtual Scavenger Hunt
Connect with loved ones wherever they may be with a digital scavenger hunt. Instead of piling up physical objects, everyone completes challenges virtually and remotely. All they need is a DSLR camera or mirrorless camera – or smartphone – to capture the photo and video tasks. Brainstorm a list of treasures to find that inspire participants to fill their home with holiday spirit – take a photo of the stockings hung or a video of someone placing an ornament on a tree. Then add things that encourage them to investigate their neighbourhood – for example, take a photo of an inflatable reindeer or a video of twinkling lights.
Turn Your Photos into Artwork
Personalize your living space by transforming a favourite photo into a custom high-quality print. Hang the artwork year-round, or if it’s a winter motif, decorate your walls for the season. Custom prints also make a great gift. Framelab is an online printing and photo framing service. Photos are printed on Canon printers, and the frames are handmade. Simply upload and format your photo, choose and customize your frame, and Framelab delivers your artwork to your doorstep. Prints ship within two weeks of purchase.
Use Your Camera as Webcam for Virtual Get-Togethers
Use your Canon camera with the EOS Webcam Utility software and enjoy high-quality webcam capability, perfect for spending virtual face time with family and friends over the holidays. The free software is compatible with more than 40 Canon DSLR cameras, mirrorless cameras and PowerShot cameras, and is available for both Windows and Mac users. Select Canon cameras offer clean HDMI output, removing icons and other on-screen info from your live feed.
Create a Holiday Slideshow
Digitize photos from holidays past to create a slideshow to share as a family present. If your home is full of family photo albums, this is also a great way to back up years of memories. The first step is scanning the photos into digital files. Grab your dedicated photo scanner – or use the flatbed scanner on your all-in-one printer – crank up your favourite holiday playlist and scan the photos you’ve selected to share. Once your photos are safely stored on your hard drive, a thumb drive or in the cloud, use your favourite slideshow software or app. Be sure to add special effects and music to fit the spirit of the season.