Invent It! Photo Calendar Kit

Use this kit with your favorite design software, computer, and inkjet printer to create your own photo calendar based around your 12 greatest photos. Enliven the calendar's pages and your days with witty or poignant clip art, creating not just a useful tool but a cherished keepsake for a given year.

This exciting kit contains 15 separate 8.5-by-11-inch sheets of heavyweight photo paper, each with a glossy side for photos and a matte side for text and clip art. A clear, see-through front cover and a heavyweight back cover and an easy-to-use spiral clip bind your calendar, while between the covers you get print-and-stick project paper for creating special add-ons.

Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
I bought three of these calendar kits in November of 2000 and gave them as Xmas presents when completed. The kit contains heavyweight paper for the cover(s) and 15 pages with glossy paper on one side and matte on the other. The glossy side means your photos can be printed at the highest photo-quality setting of your printer, and the matte side (for the month's grid of days) permits easy writing. That is the major draw of the kit. If there is a glossy/matte printable paper out there, I don't know of it (a trip to Kinkos would take care of the binding). The pages are pre-cut with a hole to hang the thing from and holes for the plastic binder. Two clear plastic covers are included, as well as two sheets of sticker paper, to print stickers for placement on the finished calendar. I didn't use them. I have considerable, but non-professional, computer experience, and I found the calendar kit to be a good experience. I composed a calendar of our two daughters, with 12 monthly photos and a cover photo. I used 3.3 Mega-pixel digital images from my new Sony S-70 digital camera at full resolution, and included them at 8"x10" size. High quality images are a must for good results. After constructing the January graphics, I simply altered it for the other months. In total, you need 12 month grids, 12 month photos, cover photo or graphic, and rear cover graphic (if desired). A couple of caveats. First, large photos, particularly dark ones, chew up printer ink. Be prepared to feed your printer ink cartridges. Try to use photos without a lot of dark background, or consider smaller sizes. I decided to pass up on a beautiful photo of a Halloween pumpkin that had an extensive black background. Secondly, I had some difficulty getting the paper to feed into my HP 722 smoothly. I think the printer may not be used to feeding paper with the glossy side DOWN, as is required to print on the matte side. As a result, the printing was tricky, I lost a couple of pages (you get three extra), and it took a lot of time. The large photos, as usual, take a long time to print. I don't recommend doing more than a couple of kits in a short period. Let the relatives compete for your affections. Finally, the heavyweight covers are very nice, but one side is matte white and the other is DARK BLUE (Argh! They should change that, and make one white/white, for the front cover/January). I used one for December/back cover (the "copyright" on the blue side), but used a glossy/matte month page for the front cover/January, with a clear cover on top of it. One less screw-up possible, then. If you need software to compose your calendar, they offer an "Invent It! Photo Calendar Plus" version that includes the software. I used my own Corel Print House program, so I can't comment upon the "Plus" version. The results? My mother-in-law said it was "the best present she had ever received," and my Dad said that one of the pictures of our older daughter "brought a tear to his eye." Enough said.