Creating A Photo Calendar Layout In Photoshop For Personalized Gifts

Creating A Photo Calendar Layout In Photoshop For Personalized Gifts – Looking for a last-minute and year-round gift idea? Why not create your own photo calendar using a flip photo frame that you can reuse year after year.

Today I’m going to show you a fun and easy homemade gift idea, a homemade photo calendar. Although I have made photo calendars before, none were as simple or beautiful as these.

Creating A Photo Calendar Layout In Photoshop For Personalized Gifts

I used to print photos and calendars on each side of several sheets of photo paper and bind them in a spiral. This is a great way to make a wall calendar, but it takes a little more time and effort than this little desk calendar.

Create Photo Calendars

The thought came to me many years ago when I was shopping at IKEA one December. I found their Flip Photo Frames (IKEA Finlir) with exactly 6 pages and thought they were perfect for making desk calendars.

IKEA frames are the perfect size and design for a photo calendar. By using one month for each side, the frame had enough space for all 12 months. There was no need to cover or fill the remaining pages with anything else.

You need to choose 12 photos for your calendar, one for each month of the year. I usually choose photos from the previous year for next year’s calendar.

So, for example, I often use summer photos during the summer months. I used my Christmas card photos for the December calendar and I used the first day of school photos for September.

2025 Photo Calendar Template, Desk Calendar Monthly Calendar, Year Calendar, Per Page A Photo, Modern Photoshop Calendar, Psd, Corjl

Collect your digital photos and prepare them to add to your calendars using one of the options below.

The easiest, fastest and most elegant way I have found to make my own photo calendar is to use ready-made templates in Canva.

If you have never used Canva, I suggest you give it a try. It is an online photo editor that has all kinds of templates to edit and use for free. They have an option to pay extra for some photos and a monthly plan that lets you use your own fonts and logos, get more free photos, and resize your layout with a single click.

However, you don’t have to be a professional to make your own calendar. You can easily and quickly create a calendar using their free templates. Make sure to remove the photos in the template before replacing them with your own or you will be asked to pay to download your design. (They are charging for photos and not for model or design).

Jeffrey Friedl’s Blog » Jeffrey’s Photoshop Calendar-template-building Script

A photo calendar made with Canva. Find a free printable first day of school poster on the blog.

To make my own photo calendar this year, I used the “Multicolor Landscape Photo Calendar” template. I was looking for a calendar with a simple design that would allow me to take relatively large photos. That model fits well with the idea I had in mind.

However, you can choose from a variety of calendars there. Go to the Canva website and search for “calendars”. (Or search for “Canva Calendars” in your web browser.

Replace the calendar template images with your own images. You can then make any adjustments to the fonts and add, remove or change the filters used in the photos before downloading your calendars.

2025 Photo Collage Calendar Template, Honeycomb Photo Calendar Design, Printable One Page 2025 Calendar With Custom Photo Layout

If you have Adobe Photoshop, I found a simple and attractive option to overlay a calendar on your photos. Although it’s a bit more complicated than making a calendar in Canva, it’s a lot easier than it sounds.

To use the script, open the photo in Photoshop, then run the action. A photo is automatically placed in the background of the calendar for the month you select. If you don’t have an image open when you run the action, a bookmarked layer will be created into which you can drag or paste the desired photo after calendaring.

I love the free calendar action because it’s completely customizable. You can choose the language for your calendar, the day you want it to start each week and many more options to choose from.

Once you’ve finished running the script, you can play around with the image to adjust how it’s displayed on your calendar. So if a number in your photo ends up in a weird place, you can correct it a bit before printing your calendar.

How To Use Canva To Design Your Own Calendar

You can also use Google Calendars to create your monthly calendars. While this is a valid option, I don’t like how it turns out and the other options. I’m having a hard time customizing the calendars and making them look the way you want.

To use Google Calendars, go to https://www.google.com/calendar and open the calendar for the month you want to print.

In the upper right, you will see several drop-down menus. One lets you select a “month” so you can print monthly calendars. Another dropdown in the settings menu (gear icon) gives you the option to “print” your calendars. A print preview of the calendar appears with options to print the calendar in the format of your choice.

This is what I get with Google Calendars. If I had planned to use it, I would have worked on removing the extra text and gray squares on the days of the other months!

Photo Calendar Creator

If you want to add a photo to your calendar, you’ll need to use some kind of photo editing program. Instead of printing the calendar directly, use the “Save As” option to save the calendar as a PDF. The PDF file has a transparent background for the days of the month, allowing you to drag the photo onto the calendar as shown above.

You can use photo editing software (if it supports PDF) to add other design elements, such as using other fonts for the month names.

Once you’ve printed your calendars, all that’s left to do is place the calendars in your frame.

It starts from January and February. Place the monthly calendars back to back (both on the right) and place them on the first page of the frame. March and April then May and June and so on.

Personalised Photo Calendars 2025

Above you can see my finished photo calendar next to a cup of tea with a very simple and cozy homemade mug. He is sitting on a marble roller coaster at home. Here are some great gift ideas for this time of year.

Perfect for giving as a memorable gift that will be treasured all year long, making your own photo calendars is fun, quick and easy.

Calendars can also be made in Google Calendars by selecting the Print option in the Google Calendars Settings menu after selecting Monthly View. Instead of printing directly, calendars can be saved as PDFs with a transparent background. A photo can be added to the calendar later in a photo editing program.

This post was originally published on November 29, 2013. It was rewritten in December 2019, adding a new way to create a calendar, updated photos, and printable instructions.

8 Essential Steps To Design A Professional Print Desktop Calendar

Tracy Ariza, B.A., D.D.S., Dentistry and the United States left Oh, The Things Will Make!, writing to you from the Spanish Riviera. She likes to do things herself to control what’s in them. Although she is far from perfect, she strives every day to live a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle.

Previous Post: Three Wise Men’s Day (and the 12 Days of Christmas) in Spain

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site, we hope you are satisfied with it. Ok, so I made a Photoshop JavaScript script that creates calendars. Running in Photoshop (CS2 or later), the result is a Photoshop document with half a dozen layers that you can adjust and modify, add your own image, and so on.

The script, running in Photoshop CS2 or later, should work the same on both Windows and Mac, although I’ll show screenshots with Windows.

Make Your Own Photo Calendars 2024

Running the script brings up a dialog that allows settings for the calendar (page size, etc.), but a copy of the script can be edited to precisely control fonts, sizes, margins, etc. The output of the script is a Photoshop document with a dozen layers that can be modified/adjusted later.

My goal in creating this was to make loose-leaf calendars in landscape mode that my wife and I could use for our daily/weekly schedules (eg, “Preschool field trip tomorrow,” “So-and-so’s friend is visiting on Sunday,” etc.). By the way, I want something that looks like a calendar up close…but art from a distance. That’s the goal, at least.

Simply, select a target year and month (or select “all” months to create 12 separate calendars), set