Homemade Christmas and New Year Cards - Win a HP Deskjet Ink Advantage Printer

It is a season of celebration and my kids are busy preparing Christmas and New Year cards for their friends. Most of the times, they prefer custom cards using their drawings made with  sketches and glitters along their personal message. And when the list is big, it is always the smallest greeting card along with their personal touch for their friends. And having a printer at home, saves a lot of trouble depending on shops for a professional looking printed card along with their personal touch which my kids always love doodling and scribbling in whatever they give their friends.

The HP Deskjet ink advantage 3545 all-in-one wireless printer at our home is a feature-filled printer that offered us an easy way to make child friendly homemade Christmas and New Year Cards in just few steps either by USB or wirelessly through your laptop, tablet and mobile phone. Along with printed card, Cherry and Berry applied their personal message using craft items. I found that it was the best way to introduce kids to both worlds of technology and custom card making. My kids had a lot of fun using personalized images for their cards and decorating their cards the way they want it to be thereby enhancing their creative skills.

Also, instead of opting the usual MS softwares, we used HP printer's HP Photo Creations facility to design and print our cards, after which my little ones Cherry and Berry used craft materials to personalize the cards.

For this, the HP Deskjet ink advantage printer should be connected to ePrintCenter on the web or simply put it should be HP Connected.

In your hpconnected.com, go to -> Collections-> Photos - For HP Photo Creations and download the free software that lets you easily create photo books, calendars, collages, greeting cards and other keepsakes that you can print at home or have shipped to you and sign up with HP photo creation with a secured password.

With HP Photo Creations, you have a number of choices that lets you to create your own collages, cards for various occasions, photo books, business cards etc. which you can print at home using HP printer. And our choice were to design ,print and decorate a personalized Christmas photo cards so that little Cherry and little Berry can gift their friends.

Design using HP Photo Creations

You can choose between two cards - flat or folded and my choice was flat as the look of a post card will be best for kids to gift their friends. Cocktails and Caroling was our pick as I loved the way it looked. After choosing the card, it is time to personalize it using the "Personalize and Print" green button.

We can add photos from our computer, Facebook, Phanfare or Picasa. I used the first option of "Browse the computer" to add photos to Christmas cards

You can see the added photos on the left hand side of the HP Photo Creation software. Now, drag the preferred photos one by one to the empty photo area and arrange it the way you want using the edit photo options that you get when you click on each photo.

You can also add your own texts, edit its font and appearance either by clicking on the text box over the image or by using the menu option "Text" on the left hand side of the HP Photo Creation software. More options of Graphics, themes and design can be added to the card as per your preference. I used the "Design" menu on the left to change the way the card looks with that of the image and the text. You can test with various effects after which you will need to connect to your HP Printer wirelessly to print the cards.

Printing Wirelessly using HP Deskjet Ink Advantage Printer

Using HP glossy photo paper, we printed our first card which turned out beautifully. Next, using the copy option of the printer, we printed our second card just as same as the first one by placing the first printed card over the scanning area on the top of the HP Printer.

Decorating the Cards - By Cherry and Berry

After trimming the cards, Cherry and Berry decorated them using different craft materials and even wrote a personal message for their friends at the backside of the cards using sketches and glitters. And the result was just awesome without doubt and my children were proud of their outcome. Their friends including their parents loved the cards.

Cherry and Berry's personlised printed cards

Competition:

Do your kids love making home made cards? If so, their love for card making will help them win a brand new HP deskjet ink advantage 3545 all-in-one wireless printer

HP Deskjet Ink Advantage 3545 All-in-one Wireless Printer

To win yourself the above HP Deskjet Ink Advantage 3545 All-in-one Wireless Printer worth MRP: Rs. 7,924,

1. Create a blog post or add a Facebook status (or notes) of minimum 300 words with the theme of "Custom made creative printables at home" (or) " Fun things you can do with your printer" (or) "Ideas for creative printables" with at least one image and a link back to this blog post.
2. Do send in your blog post links or Facebook status links through the comment below.
3. Share and tweet for your higher chances of winning. 
4. Participation Certificate to all the entries. 

Note: This contest is open to residents of India only. Extended date! Last date to submit your entry is on 10th January, 2015. The winner will be announced on or before 14th of January.

Winner Annoucement:

First of all, thank you every one for your posts and support!

Congrats! The Solitary Writer for his post "Ingenious prinitng ideas" will win one HP Deskjet Ink Advantage Printer. Kindly pass me your contact details through the tab "Contact" above. As promised, every participants will get a Certificate of Appreciation.