Personalized Printables - A Fun and Easy Gift to Make!

This year for Christmas my family challenged each other to give homemade gifts as much as possible. Some of us have more time to do the creating and others needed quick diy gift ideas.  I'm excited to see what everyone has come up with. I myself am knitting surprises for my 2 older daughters, crocheting for my 6 year old granddaughter, and if I have time, I'm hoping to do some 'gifts in a jar' types as well.  I enjoyed making the Winter Printable and Nativity Printable earlier this fall and had the idea to do personalized ones for my grandkids.  PicMonkey makes this so fun and really a snap to do.

I started by going to my PicMonkey account. I purchased the Royale membership, but you can also use it for free. Royale membership means you get access to all of the tools, rather than just some. But even the free version is great! Right now they are having a promotion where you get a 30 day free trial of the Royale tools. So, even if you choose not to get the full version, you can use the 30 day trial to make these printables!

So, back to the 'how to'! 

Once I opened PicMonkey, I chose to use the 'Design' mode.

This will take you to the design screen where you will be able to choose all the things you want to add to your creation! I chose to make my design 8 x 10 as it prints out nicely on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. After choosing your size, click on the APPLY button to save it. 

Now you have a couple of options. You can choose to just start adding text, or you can choose a background for your printable. One thing to remember is that if you are going to print it on your own printer, you may want to save ink and just print on coloured paper. If you take it to Staples or some such place to have it printed (cheap and great quality) then it really doesn't matter how much colour you add. I started to add text to my page and then added a background later. You can also choose to make the background transparent so you can print it on coloured paper.

Here are the various options highlighted for you.

If you want to print on coloured paper, then from the Canvas Colour tab, check the box by Transparent Canvas and then click 'apply'. The background will look checkered, but will be transparent to print.

To choose a background from PicMonkey, simply go through the various options and decide on one and then click 'apply'. I chose the crinkled paper background from the 'Textured' backgrounds tab. You can choose a colour or textures or add one from your own computer by clicking the 'add your own' button at the top of the tab menu.

Above you can see I have added several words around my central 'name' Santa Claus. I coloured only the central name here, but you can make the words all sorts of colours and sizes by using the various tools that will appear each time you add a new word. I find resizing the text box around the word I type in helps with moving words around later. This way the text boxes are not overlapping each other and the cursor doesn't get confused with what box you are trying to grab. Just click and slide the end of the text box in.

Play with fonts, sizes, colours, placement.  Try adding some 'stickers'. You can also add things from your own computer like fonts and pictures. It is such a fun program to play with! Spend time exploring the various tools and options. You can spin words around using the little circle appendage on the text box to make your words different angles and directions. Add words, move them around...play!


 When you have your printable just how you like it, then click the 'save' button at the top of the screen.

Then, on the next page choose a name for the file and where you want to save it.

Awesome! You are done! Now you just have to print it out and frame it! 

These are so much fun to make! I have my grandkids all ready to print out and frame.  Feel free to print out this one and share it! But, don't let me have all the fun, create one yourself! I'd love to hear how it works out!

PS...this post contains affiliate links!