The summer holidays seem far away now and during those two months, your children did a lot of things… Trips, visits but also art and crafts like drawing: they drew a lot and, with their works of art from the previous year, you now have stack them at home.

So, to start the (school) year on the right foot, why don’t you do a little DIY project with your kids and make a photo calendar from their drawings? If you don’t want to keep it yourself, it’d make a great present for your parents. You can already picture the smile on their faces.

The perfect gift for your family and friends

Children do love giving self-made drawings to family on all sorts of occasions: of a house, or a lady with arms instead of her ears (by your younger kids), or more elaborate drawings of dogs, cats or a family portrait! Grandparents often keep these gifts carefully in a chest of drawers and contentedly look at them from time to time. But here’s a way to change this tradition and create a quick gift for them to hang in their favourite rooms and look at the whole year to come!

Are you ready for a bit of Me-time with the kids? Here is what you need:

• Your children – remember, you’re creating a personalised calendar with them!
• Some paintings or drawings made by your children – the hardest thing will be to decide between ALL of them, but you have to!
• Gather together all those inspirational artworks to show off
• Start to plan your calendar and choose what work of art fits for each month: you can use trees or flower drawings for Spring months, snowflakes or Santa for Winter season and a special masterpiece for their birthdays

How to scan your kids’ artworks and make your personalised calendar

Before you put them in an A3 Poster Calendar or a Square Calendar, you’ll first need to scan the drawings/paintings. You can:

• Use the scanner you might have at home or your office, or go to your local library
• Try the Google app PhotoScan – you only have to capture your kids’ drawings with your phone and the app does the rest for you
• Upload your photos to Photobox
• Select your layout and choose your favourite background – black or white or both of them – the month that you want to start with, and your photos
• Taddaaaa! Your unique calendar is done

This calendar was made in a few clicks. The hardest thing was to choose between all the kids’ drawings! If you’re not really a crafty family you can always replace drawings by photos of your children, pets, favourite cities or countries!