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Snap To It
Fun & Funky Ways to Preserve Your Family’s Digital Memories
By Jennifer Maciejewski
The holidays have come and gone yet again. And while certain reminders of the season remain in plain view, from the football games now playing on the family’s new plasma television to the perennial fruitcake left uneaten on the counter, other memories remain locked away, never to be seen again. For many families, this is especially true when it comes to their digital photos. Although they find themselves taking more pictures than ever before, many people find that they never bother to print out and display their snapshots after downloading them to the computer.
To help you get your holiday season’s highlights off the hard drive, Points North tracked down some creative ways to preserve and display your family memories.
 SnapTotes
With SnapTotes, you can transform your precious memory or picturesque view into one of 13 fun and functional boutique-style accessories, including handbags, purses and totes. Once you select an image, the photograph is baked onto the bag’s high-quality microfiber exterior through a sublimation process, creating a clear image that will not fade, crack or peel. In most cases, you can customize other aspects of the bag, such as adding a snap or a zipper to a tote; choosing between black, lime green, red or hot pink for the interior Bengaline fabric; or upgrading to leather handles and piping. And since photos can be cropped, converted to black and white or sepia, or combined to create a collage, the possibilities are as endless as your imagination.
Where to Purchase: www.snaptotes.com; SnapTotes gift boxes are available at select retailers, including Best Buy
Price: Starting from $25 to $135
 Wearable Art
Egami Lifestyle enables you to transform your photographs into a wide variety of handbags as well, with options ranging from bamboo or leather handles to a cosmetic bag with an inset oval mirror or a diaper bag, complete with a rolled changing pad. But Egami takes it a step further, allowing you to turn your cherished memories into coats and scarves made from silk, velvet, satin or suede. Though many of the items are designed for women, some will suit men’s tastes as well, such as the cream leather wallet or the reversible orange or raspberry Hanoi satin scarf without the beads. It’s truly wearable art.
Where to Purchase: www.egami-lifestyle.com
Price: Wallets and bags start from $120, coats from $630, scarves from $230
 From Oil Paintings to Woven Throws
To wrap yourself up in your favorite memory, head to www.yourphototo.com where you can turn a cherished photograph into a woven throw blanket, which measures 50 inches by 60 inches and is machine washable. If you’d rather display the image, opt for transforming it into a tapestry wall hanging, complete with a decorative metal rod with finials and hardware for hanging, or an oil painting, which allows you to combine a spontaneous moment captured on film with the brush-stroke detail of a hand-painted portrait.
Where to Purchase: www.yourphototo.com; Gift boxes are available at select retailers, including Best Buy
Price: Oil painting from $79.95, throw from $124.95, and tapestry wall hanging from $139.95
 Digital Photo Frames
Though paintings and handbags work well when you have one or two key images that you want to share, they’re not practical solutions for sharing all of the hundreds of fun pictures you snapped during the holidays. To bring the photos out of the computer and into your living room, download up to 100 images into a Philips Digital Photo Display frame.
Available in a variety of sizes and styles, each frame can display a single photo, thumbnails of the pictures or a slideshow of all your memories.
Where to Purchase: Sharper Image, Office Depot, Discovery Channeland www.consumer.philips.com
Price: 7-inch display is $199; 9-inch display is $249
 Digital Picture Keychain
Giving the concept of the digital photo display miniature proportions, TAO created its Digital Picture Keychain. Each 1.4-inch keychain holds 56 photos and runs off rechargeable lithium batteries, which refuel when connected to the computer. Though you can scroll through the photos with the click of a button, you can also set the keychain to slideshow mode to give your fingers a break. If you forget to turn it off, no worries — the keychain turns itself off after it has not been in use for three minutes, extending its battery life. It’s the ultimate brag book.
Where to Purchase: Brookstone and Discovery Channel
Price: $59.99
 Glow-In-The-Dark Photos
What kid doesn’t like things that glow in the dark? With that philosophy in mind, Brightec designed its line of photo-quality glow-in-the-dark paper called PhotoGlo. Under regular light, the image of your dog dressed up as a reindeer looks perfectly normal, but in the dark, the picture will glow for hours with full photographic detail, creating a backlit effect. While the 4-by-6 sheets are perfectly sized for single prints, your children can get creative with the
8.5-by-11 sheets, making collages or adding text.
Where to Purchase: CompUSA and www.brightec.com
Price: $9.95 and up
 Coffee Table Books
If you’d prefer to display your holiday photos in a more traditional form, you’re no longer limited to printing them all out and stuffing them into a standard photo album. With Kodak’s Legacy Photo Book, you can use your digital memories to create an elegant coffee table book. Hardbound in leather or linen in a choice of four colors, each page is customizable, allowing you to add captions, maximize space with full bleed or create a nine-picture collage.
Where to Purchase: www.kodakgallery.com
Price: $69.99 and up
 PhotoStamps
Though writing Thank You notes can be a bit of a chore, you can make the task a
bit more fun when you slap a PhotoStamp on the envelope. For just pennies more than traditional stamps, you can use the image of your choice to create legal U.S. postage. You can zoom in or rotate the image to capture the moment and even customize the border colors to match. It’s a quick way to add a personalized greeting to your friends and family.
Where to Purchase: www.photostamps.com
Price: Postcards, $.24; First Class Stamp, $.39; Package Postage, $4.05.
Each sheet contains 20 postage labels. One sheet minimum purchase required.
 Taking Scrapbooking to the Next Level
Just as technology has redefined what a photo album can be, scrapbookers have an array of new options for designing both pages and album covers with digital photos. Silver Dog Digital in Marietta can take a cherished photo and print it directly onto an Italian metallic or high-quality vinyl cover that can be further embellished with ribbons and charms, giving your scrapbook a new level of personalization. Once you design the interior pages using either PhotoShop or digital scrapbooking software, Silver Dog Digital can print them on acid-free photo pages, which will help preserve your memories for years to come.
Where to Purchase: Silver Dog Digital in Marietta, www.silverdogdigital.com
Price: Covers start at $65
 Post-It Picture Paper
Teenagers love to surround themselves with pictures of their friends, and they often tape the prints to everything they can get their hands on, from walls and mirrors to doors and lockers. And while their holiday photos give them a chance to update their displays with recent shots, swapping out the old for the new can’t be done without leaving a sticky residue or stripping paint from the wall. That is, until now. Post-it designed its Picture Paper to have a photo-quality front with a sticky adhesive backing, similar to a Post-it Note. The picture paper comes in a variety of sizes and finishes, and since it sticks almost anywhere, removes cleanly and re-sticks with ease, your teen will have a virtually endless range of decorating options.
Where to Purchase: Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart, Target, Staples and other retailers
Price: $4.99 and up
 From Posters to Pop Art
When they’re not covering all available surfaces with photographs, teenagers often opt to deck their walls with posters. And while the latest hot celebrities or music groups may be all that’s readily available for purchase at the store, Silver Dog Digital in Marietta will work with your teens to create custom-designed posters, from a collage of their first New Year’s Eve party to a pop art poster of the snowman they built with their kid sister and brother.
Where to Purchase: Silver Dog Digital in Marietta, www.silverdogdigital.com
Price: Starting from $65
 Memory Books
A coffee table book for kids, SharedBook’s templates give your children a way to arrange their holiday memories in a book. Ranging from 20 to 200 pages in length, each memory book is designed around a theme, from the holidays to their Little League season. Available with either a soft or hard cover, your child can personalize each full-color book with the photos and stories they cherish from any special event.
Where to Purchase: www.sharedbook.com
Price: Soft Cover from $25; Hard Cover from $47
 Books Starring Your Child
While a memory book allows you to write your own script to the story, Shutterfly and Scholastic partnered to create a line of photo books that gives your child the chance to become part of the action alongside their favorite cartoon characters. Featuring Clifford the Big Red Dog, Thomas & Friends and Angelina Ballerina, you and your preschooler can drag-and-drop your favorite pictures into the character-themed page templates, add captions, personalize the front and back covers, and insert a title and the date on the spine to create an original book.
Where to Purchase: www.shutterfly.com
Price: 8-by-8 Story Book, $34.99; 12-by-12 Memory Book, $59.99
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