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Turn Holiday Memories Into Keepsakes By Alice B. Miller Besides just sharing your holiday images via email or family albums, why not turn your photos into family heirlooms? Article rating: 7.25

A great thing about the holidays is visiting with family and friends, laughing, singing, catching up on life, and capturing these fleeting moments in photographs.

You share holiday photos by email, post them on the fridge, and sometimes give your favorites photos a place of honor in family albums or scrapbooks. But did you know you could turn your favorite photos into family heirlooms?

I recently chatted with photographer Andrew Darlow—author of the new book 301 Inkjet Tips and Techniques: An Essential Printing Resource for Photographers—about family heirlooms. Following are some tips about two of the most popular options: keepsake boxes and ornaments.

Keepsake Boxes
Families have used keepsake boxes to store their valuable heirlooms and photographs for years. Today, a number of companies offer these boxes.

-- Shutterfly.com and FedEx Kinkos, for example, sell hardwood boxes with a photo tile on the cover. “Once you’ve selected your cover image, you can either upload the file on the company's website or at an authorized FedEx Kinkos location,” says Andrew.

-- Kolo produces a wide variety of photo boxes, including their Havana line. “As you may realize, the Havana boxes are inspired by classic cigar boxes,” says Andrew. Featuring Kolo's trademark window to hold a photo, these photo boxes are available in medium and large. The large Havana boxes hold two 8.5x11-inch Kolo Series A albums; medium boxes hold about 500 4x6-inch prints. These boxes are made from either fine book cloth or black bonded leather and archival bookbinding paper.

You may want to make your photo box a true family keepsake by adding something each year, such as a family photo, then passing it along to future generations. If you have many keepsakes, instead of trying to find a box large enough to store everything, consider Andrew’s suggestion: “Create a new box for each year, placing special items from that year—such as programs from recitals and school events, newspaper clippings, weddings, and ticket stubs—in the box. It’s like creating a ‘3D scrapbook.’”

Holiday Ornaments
You may know families who pass down their Christmas tree ornaments, generation to generation. With today's technology, they can incorporate their favorite photos into ornaments that can be enjoyed during the holidays, for years to come.

Several companies offer these customized ornaments. To name a few:

-- Kodak Gallery has several different options, from a set of three framed ornaments that you insert yourself to a Pewter Ornament that Kodak prints on the item then ships off to you 

 “A big advantage of do-it-yourself slip-in ornaments is that you can swap out the photos each year, tracking your child’s or other loved one’s changes,” says Andrew. “The prior year's photos can then be placed in frames that accept the same size photos and put on a mantle, table, or wall to be enjoyed year round.”

-- Snapfish.com offers a range of ornaments, from a Porcelain Postcard Photo Ornament shaped like a postcard to a white Porcelain Filigree Ornament. All the ornaments are printed directly on the items after you upload images or choose them from an existing Snapfish album.

-- Djams Corporation offers printed photos on three-inch Pearl Holiday Ornaments. You just fill out their form, upload a JPG file, request text (such as a year or a person's name), and the company will send you a color proof via email for your approval. All of their ornaments ship with an acrylic base and a hook for hanging.

So this holiday, try transforming a few of your favorite photos into heirlooms that your family will enjoy for generations.

Happy holidays!

Alice B. Miller, the former editor of Studio Photography magazine, is a writer and editor based in Long Island, New York. She is a member of the International Photographic Council's board of directors, and has served as a juror for the Black & White Spider Awards and for the Center for Fine Art Photography. She may be reached at alice@photogrator.com.

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