Make Your Own Christmas Photo Card with PicMonkey

This year I’m sending out a picture of James inside our Christmas cards that I had some fun editing in PicMonkey.  I wanted to share with you how I did it in case you aren’t familiar with the free online editing tool.  It’s super easy to use and I edit almost all of my photos in it.  I wish I knew how to use Photoshop, but I find PicMonkey works well for my purposes. 
Here’s the end result for the picture that will be included in our cards for 2012.  

Would you believe I took 99 photos of James to get ONE I could use for the card?!  Literally 99.  You ever tried to get a good picture of an active two year old? 🙂

Below is the out-of-the camera shot that I used for the photo.  It’s a great straight on, in-focus shot of James with a cool background given the water fall and brick wall.  The random guy and stroller need to go, obviously.  

To begin editing, go to Pickmonkey.com and click on “Edit a Photo”.  You can choose the photo from your computer library or drag the photo into PicMonkey. 

First, I used the cropping tool to crop the image.

Here’s the cropped image. 

Then I used the Clone tool to copy the water fall to cover the stroller. 

Voila- no more stroller!  It’s not perfect, but close enough. 

To lighten the photo without over exposing it, I used Curves.  You can also lighten your photos in “Exposure” and take out any yellow or warm tones in “Color”. 

To write on the photo, I clicked on the “P”, then chose my desired font.  You can resize and move the words around too. 

Then I used the color editor to color each letter a different color. 

I then chose the winter application to add snowflakes.  PicMonkey has all kinds of cool effects for different seasons. 

And then I colored the snowflakes to compliment the words Merry Christmas.

Finally, just Save your image.  

I print my photos at Walgreeens.  You can just go to their website and upload your photos from your computer there.  They always have coupons and can print your photos in an hour.  You could also print them at home on photo paper or card stock.
Here’s the finished result.  Too cute!
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Meet Megan

Hi! I’m Megan, mom to a thoughtful teenager and spunky young girl. We call Houston home and recently moved into our dream home. I traded my lawyer hat to become a full-time blogger in 2010. I love sharing my passion for affordable fashion, home decor, organization, & fitness to help inspire you to take care of you!

35 Comments

  1. Oh my gosh… genius! I had NO idea that there were that many photo editing options in picmonkey! So awesome!

  2. He is precious!!! That turned out so cute. I got so sucked into that program that I ended up making three different versions and couldn't decide. I need to learn how to make up my mind. I love the colors you added.

  3. Megan, how you keep up with so many great things and raise a 2-yr. old is beyond me! Thank you for this, I love it. You are the bomb!! Please keep all the great stuff coming! Loving the healthy site too. xo-M.

  4. Niiiice. I am super excited about my card, too! Every year it's way different than the last– but always a pic of everyone! So nice to share something for the holidays that WE made OURSELVES, isn't it?!

    Merry Christmas!

  5. I use Photoshop regularly, but I might add some of those cute snowflake stamps in Picmonkey. I had no idea it was such a great free tool! I will be reccommending it to friends who don't want or need to shell out the bucks for PS. BTW, all of those pics are adorable. He is precious. L

  6. Hi Megan:
    I have been reading your blog for a while now but I am commenting for the first time. I love your blog and get so many inspirational ideas from it. I have implemented so many ideas from it such as the little coffee station in your kitchen and organizing books according to color. This is such a cute picture of your son. Thanks for posting this coz I really needed to learn how to make our own Christmas card and to do general editing of pictures. I will be reading this post a ton of times. Thanks again for your cool blog!

    Anna

    1. Anna, thank you so much for your sweet comment! I really appreciate you taking the time to write! I hope you have fun editing your photos. 🙂

  7. Aww…so cute. And, LOL. Try doing it with 2 or more. The girls are almost 23 and 19 and I had to take 100! My hair doesn't look right, I'm squinting, her eyes are shut, on and on and on!! Thankfully Elie is the Master at creating photo cards.

  8. Love these tips! I just started using picmonkey to edit photos for my blog because I'm afraid of and don't know how to use photoshop. Also, photoshop is not cheap, especially if you don't know what you're doing (like me!) Can't wait to use these tips on picmonkey!

  9. James is so cute! Such a fun card you created Megan. I have to check out Pic Monkey now. I was fiddling around with PhotoShop and getting so overwhelmed.

  10. I'm using PicMonkey for our cards this year too! Love the way your photo came out! it doesn't get easier taking their picture. Mine are 6 and 8 and I still have trouble getting a good shot of them together!

  11. Thank you thank you for tips on this website! I had never heard of it and you have now inspired me to make our own holiday cards. Goodbye $200 holiday cards…hello creativity on picmonkey 🙂

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