Where can you put your holiday pictures? On your address card, mug or duvet cover and more

Problem
Where can you put your holiday pictures?

For Yourself:
1 As wallpaper on your phone or laptop.
2 In a picture book.
3 On the cover of a notebook, such as one used for your next travel trip. Use a single photo or a collage.

For Others To See
1 As the homepage of your website.
2 In Vistaprint on caps, tee-shirts, bags, notebook covers, your own business address cards, mouse pads, posters, calendars, magnets and wedding invitations.
3 Facebook - on a profile page or in updating regularly.
4 Twitter
5 LinkedIn

6 Instagram - divided by subjects or countries.
7 Pinterest - divided by subjects or countries.

8 Able-label - put family photos or holiday photos on mugs, tee-shirts and other items, for a birthday or Easter gift.
9 The cover of your novel or other self-published book.
10 The cover of a box file in which you store your holiday brochures for a particular country.

11 Mobile phone case covers personalised with your photo from Pixum.
12 Sell photos

13 Tesco supermarket greeting cards from your photo
14 Boots cards from your photos

15 Personalised duvet cover from your photo - half a dozen companies do this at various prices, from about £60, plus postage.

16 Pillows, playing cards, and many more items from Smart Photo company.
17 Getting Personal will make you a label from a photo on a bottle of Prosecco or Champagne, a diary, a slate photoframe, a magnetic photoframe, and many more gifts, personalised with a photo or a name. For all occasions, such as Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, 50th Birthday, Christening, baby photo, wedding gift,  and many more.

18 Personalised gifts using your photos or text include aprons, photo boxes and others from amazon.co.uk
19 Pillow cases, coasters, photo mugs and more from Amazon.com.

20 Personalised key rings from photos or with names or cutout in nymerous styles, or cushions and other goods from ebay.
21 Etsy artistic suppliers will make your cat photo key ring, or pencils and square pencil tumblers with children's names on them.

CAKES
22 Personalised cake with your photo, from a small cake at £12.50 in vanilla or chocolate, to a large cake, or a set of edible photos on rice paper to stick on cup cakes. The best and most impressive was the photo of my face on a big cake, although I was not impressed by the quality of the cake it looked impressive. I had it made once with a photo of my face and once with a photo of my book.

Then we went off cakes and onto dieting. So I economised and ordered the cupcake labels but they were so small that your name obscured the picture of your face. You have to look carefully how the name and face are positioned. It might be better to order two sets, one with faces, another with messages such as happy birthday or a name.  Cut up the message and stick it on the cake separately.

Useful Websites
https://www.able-labels.co.uk/photo-mugs/
https://www.vistaprint.co.uk/photo-gifts?txi=16602&xnid=TopNav_Photo+Gifts&xnav=TopNav
https://www.pixum.co.uk/cases/smartphone?search
https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/make-money/side-gigs/sell-your-photos-online/
https://www.tescophoto.com/photo_greeting_cards
https://www.bootsphoto.com/photo-gift/photo-cards
https://www.bagsoflove.co.uk/blankets/personalised-duvet-covers.
https://www.smartphoto.co.uk/photo-gifts
https://www.gettingpersonal.co.uk/gifts/sale?page=5
https://www.amazon.co.uk/slp/personalised-gifts-using-photos/
https://www.amazon.com/slp/personalized-photo-gifts/
http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/personalised-gifts-keyring
https://www.etsy.com/featured/personalised-gifts-
https://www.yumbles.com/the-boutique-cupcake-company/photo-logo-letterbox-cake.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Making your holiday photo into souvenirs and gifts: tablecloths; mats, bedding

What can you do with your favourite holiday photos? I was walking though a supermarket car park when i spotted a postcard on the ground advertising something. I picked it up.

The company makes your photos into blankets, cushions, tablecloths at £50-£100. Artido.co.uk

Vistaprint also does lots of useful items such as hats and shirts. Their original business was printing business cards. I have had business cards, a business cad holder, a cap, a tee-shirt and a bag.

Vistaprint often have a 'free cards' offer. If you have no cards, and want them urgently for a conference or to boost your confidence and networking, it's worthwhile trying out a simple free design. They have lots of options. Anything is better than nothing.

Once you have ordered your first set, you will probably go back and re-order higher quality.

At checkout you are likely to be sold a business card holder or a second set of cards.

Checkout Mistakes
This website, like many, might also try to make you sign up for something which involves a monthly payment. If you notice, and are happy, fine. But some students have been caught out and ended up with a huge bill which they could not pay.

Endless Repeat Charges and Cancellation
I am not good at remembering to cancel and tend to get stressed out if I want to cancel something and it proves difficult. So I have learned to avoid anything which commits me forever on the basis of cancel any time. If you are one of those people who keeps good track of your finances and regular payment.

I wish I were highly organised. I have a friend who checks his bank balance daily. He is a do it now person. He devotes three hours every Sunday after noon to managing accounts.

I am a creative. I am the one who orders either no sets of business cards, then for the rest of their life ten sets a year in six colours and styles!

Order Early For Xmas
Here's a recap. A good idea for Xmas presents for business or family. I tend to find I need cards just before a conference or trip overseas. Then it's a rush. I underestimate how long it takes to order. Postage time is unpredictable. I've had orders of business cards and books which arrived within three days, just in time. Others took weeks. You have a choice of times and payments for postage at checkout. You save money if you order early and opt for the cheapest and slowest rate.

Allowing Ordering and Postage Time
To allow time to get your orders in for Xmas, get your plans made, then allow for postage times, so start checking out the websites now. Then make sure you know the room and place where you have hidden the gifts from others in the same household. You can wrap items when they are out of the house so the recipient does not rummage through a cupboard and come across a supposed surprise.

Travelling With Gifts
If you are travelling, you may have to unwrap parcels at security or the customs for inspection. So rather than sealing, you can make concertina folds of the paper, and pretty coloured elastic bands you can slide off. You might want to pack sticky tape and a ribbon or bow to add at your destination.

Re-Oordering and Updating
Vistaprint, once you have made an account, keeps all your past designs permanently available so you can go back and re-order without having to create again.

Seeing Samples In Supermarkets and Stores
In the UK at one time you could order photos on mugs and other items at supermarkets such as Tesco and some of the department stores such as Boots. This may be a seasonal offer, or they may run it until the market is saturated and then stop.

Checking Choices
The advantage is it gives you a chance to check out whether the product will suit you and the recipient. What is the quality of the fabric, the cut of the sweater, the size? Will you and the recipient consider the colours are pale/subtle/faded or shouty/lively/vibrant? Are the mugs are good enough for a gift, solid so they won't break, or too chunky and heavy.

Selling Your Photos
Another site allows you to sell your own photos or illustrations to others to decorate their cards, key-rings, hats and so on. You set up a site selling your designs within their system and they take a cut from the price of every sale you make. Some artists make a good proportion of their living though online sales.

Look at it another way. The hard work of setting a business is done for you. All the planning of the production of the standard items, the cards, key rings and so on, is done from the central ordering and factory. You are just adding your design to their collection and getting a share of their profit.

To sum up, poor quality, not suitable, or just right? Too expensive for the size you need, or must have it, ever mind the price, or excellent value? Check out the choices. I'll add more websites later, or you can add your comments and suggestions.

Gift Photoproducts Websites
artido.co.uk (High price tablecloths etc)
vistaprint (huge choice of business card designs and add the same picture to caps etc)
photoshelter.com (selling your work)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and author.

Language, Quotations, Symbols and Titles Which Sell For Travel and Gifts

How times have changed. In the Sixties anybody who wore an advertising tee-shirt looked like an elderly, white haired, obsessed or depressed prophet of doom parading Oxford Street with the banner The End Is Nigh or New Shop Opening. Not illegal, not immoral, but definitely either nuts or so poor he had to accept money to walk up and down carrying advertising.

Now the trains are full of people wearing slogans, religious people wear religious symbols and quotations for holy books, national flags appear supporting football teams, witty quotations, motivational quotations.

You can wear a symbol such as a gold cross to advertise attachment to Christianity. Tee shirts and charms on bracelets or pendants to show you are a guitarist or rock band, their supporter. Skis and souvenir shirts from ski resorts show you are a skier. Scissors show you are a hairdresser or dressmaker. Wine bottles and grapes show you are in the wine business. Anybody at a trade show wears a tee-shirt advertising their business whether they are sitting down on the stand or walking about looking at other people's stands.

You can write books on language and grammar, serious books teaching English, or funny books explaining or making fun of mistakes and dialects such as books on Let's Stalk Strine or Singlish.

I bought fine bone china with card patterns to serve food at bridge parties.

I bought clothes with grape patterns and jewellery featuring wine bottles to wear at wine dinners.

I bought tee-shirt with the sayings and photos of Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allen Poe. I also nominated as birthday presents bracelets, rings and items on Banned Books.

I ordered from the Vistaprint site a bag featuring one of my books, a hat and a tee-shirt to match, business cards and stickers.

Looking at the Singlish cushion I thought, I could make and sell all sorts of products with my caricatures or sayings, or others which are out of copyright.

In medieval times the architect would sometimes the faces of his sponsors on public buildings; he might include his symbol or self-portrait or a caricature of a person he disliked hidden in the statues of a cathedral or the gargoyles.

Hitchcock gave himself a walk-on part in his later films. In the film When Harry Met Sally, the older lady who says to the waiter in the restaurant after the actress fakes an orgasm, "I'm having what she's having" is a relative of the film maker.

On this mural in Singapore the artist has included himself in the notes on local characters at Cooking Pot Bay, which is the translation of the name of the MRT (Mass transit railway station) and area, Telok B l a n g a h. 

Many authors use their books as a picture on Facebook. I have my own self-advertising.

If you want to buy a book from me, and get a signed copy, I am usually carrying either a book of quotations or a book of children's poetry or a story for and about children and a talking dog.

Angela Lansbury, author of;
Quick Quotations, and
Who Said What When
Larry the talking dog
, ten books by mainstream publishers and ten self published, more in preparation.