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Creating a Photo Calendar with InDesign

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An overview of how I did it and the results.

This year, I decided that I needed an affordable yet memorable holiday gift to send out to all my customers and the folks I do business with. I wanted this gift to be an in-your-face-all-year-long item. That means it had to be something the recipients would want to keep and refer to.

A calendar seemed to fit the bill.

Now every year, I get sample calendars with my company name on it from various printers who print promotional items. They’re usually pretty boring; certainly not the kind of calendar you’d want to use all year long. Clearly, I had to do better than that.

The solution was a custom calendar using the photos I’ve taken over the years to show off the places I fly to and my helicopter. The challenge was to make a professional-looking, attractive calendar that was cost-effective to print.

iPhoto’s calendar printing option was the obvious choice for creating the calendar. It offers several different formats, many of which would meet my needs. What did not meet my needs, however, was the price: $19.99 per calendar. Since I figured I’d need at least 50 of them, that was far more than I wanted to spend.

My husband suggested MagCloud, which I’ve been using for other print-on-demand needs. At first, I didn’t think it would work out. After all, MagCloud produces stapled magazines sized just under 8-1/2 x 11. But then I held a sheet of paper up to the Robinson Helicopter calendar on my wall. And guess what? It was the same size.

So I decided to go with MagCloud for printing.

At that point, it looked as if I’d be creating a 28-page calendar from scratch. Not something I looked forward to. But I did a Google search for 2010 InDesign Calendar Template, which directed me to the 2010 InDesign Calendar Template by Juliana Halvorson on the Adobe Web site.

I downloaded it and discovered that it was almost what I needed. The template assumed a landscape orientation. I wasn’t sure if MagCloud would accept the document created that way. So I modified the template to make it portrait orientation and rotated all the calendar grids. A few adjustments to the margins and bleeds (which I initially got wrong) and it was a good starting point for my own project.

First up was reviewing the holidays. Juliana had included several extra religious and “Hallmark” holidays that just weren’t appropriate for a general use calendar. I removed them. I also changed the wording of some holidays — for example, changing Thanksgiving Day to just plain Thanksgiving.

Then I needed to redo the thumbnail calendars for the previous and next month that appear on each calendar page. The type was just too small. That turned out to be a time-consuming chore, as I had to basically reformat each little calendar individually. But it was worth the effort; the numbers are now far more readable.

Here’s a little movie of the calendar’s pages. You’ll need QuickTime to view it.

Then the big task: finding the images I needed in my calendar — 12 full-page images and about 16 smaller ones — cropping them for the right proportions, saving them as TIFFs, and dragging them into my working file. It took me two full days to get the job done. In the end, it was very tedious and I just couldn’t wait to finish it.

Since the calendar’s pages had to be in multiples of 4, I had to stretch my 26 page document to 28 pages. That also meant filling in 2 more pages with something. I decided to put information about Flying M Air’s services, along with thumbnail images from the big pictures.

Once completed, I created the PDF MagCloud needed to print my calendar. The first upload (which took 4 tries on my miserably slow Internet connection here in Wickenburg) resulted in an error. I’d gotten the bleed measurements wrong. I fixed them and (fortunately) did not need to adjust the layout. Two hours later, after about 8 upload attempts, the file was online. The preview looked good.

I ordered the free proof and am now waiting for it to arrive. If it passes muster — and I’m about 95% sure it will — I’ll order about 50 copies to give as holiday gifts to clients and friends.

In the meantime, I’ve “published” the calendar so others can preview and (hopefully) buy their own copies. There is one caveat, however. Because MagCloud publishes magazines and not calendars, if you buy from MagCloud, you’ll have to punch your own hole in the top of the calendar.

I’ll be doing a lot of hole-punching next week.

Creamed Spinach

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My way.

SpinachMike and I love creamed spinach. Although we can buy it frozen in a microwaveable bag, we both prefer it fresh. Here’s my microwave-friendly recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 2 Tablespoons Butter (or margarine)
  • 1/4 cup chopped onions or scallions
  • 12 ounces fresh or frozen spinach (fresh is better, of course), prepared for cooking. When using fresh spinach, I usually use the bagged spinach. (I can’t be bothered washing, cutting, etc.)
  • 2 Tablespoons flour
  • 1 cup milk (skim is okay)
  • salt and pepper to taste

Cooking Instructions:

  1. In a saucepan or microwave-safe, covered bowl, melt the butter.
  2. Add the onions or scallions and saute until done, stirring occasionally.
  3. Meanwhile, lightly cook the spinach. I use the microwave, without added water, but you could steam it if you prefer. If you added water, drain when done. Keep warm.
  4. Sprinkle the flour in the butter/onion mixture and stir in. Cook for about two minutes.
  5. Add the milk slowly, stirring and cooking until thickened.
  6. Add the cooked spinach and blend well.
  7. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  8. Serve hot.

If you use a microwave to prepare the sauce, cover until the flour has been added to prevent splattering. Zap the mixture for one minute at a time, stirring after each minute.

This recipe can be multiplied.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

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The best of both worlds.

I love chocolate chip cookies. I also love oatmeal cookies. So what could be better than two cookies in one?

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) margarine or butter. (I admit I usually use margarine, but sometimes I use one stick of each.)
  • 1-1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional; I include it)
  • 2-1/2 cups uncooked oatmeal. You can use either quick or old fashioned, but I think it tastes better with old fashioned.
  • 1 12-oz package semi-sweet chocolate morsels
  • 1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (optional; I don’t include them)

Heat oven to 375°F. Beat together margarine and sugars until creamy. Add eggs, milk, and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, and salt; mix well. Stir in oats, chocolate morsels, and nuts; mix well.

Baking instructions when you have time to spare:
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 9 to 10 minutes for a chewy cookie or 12 to 13 minutes for a crisp cookie. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheet; remove to wire rack.

Baking instructions when you’re busy with other things:
Lay a sheet of wax paper or aluminum foil on the bottom of a standard-sized sheet pan. Spread the batter evenly over the paper, making sure you bring the batter right to the lip of the pan. Bake about 15 minutes or until batter starts to brown. Cool 5 minutes on pan, then lift paper out to flat surface such as a large cutting board. Using downward strokes with a large knife, cut into squares.

Baking instructions when you want to bake it another day:
Using floured hands on a floured surface batter into one or more log-shaped rolls about 1-1/2 to 2 inches in diameter. Wrap rolls tightly in aluminum foil. Refrigerate up to 2 days. (I’m not sure about freezing this; you might want to give it a try with a small quantity of batter.) When ready to bake, unwrap and slice rolls into 1/2-inch thick slices. Bake on ungreased baking sheet for 10 to 12 minutes.

Cool completely. Store in tightly covered container.

Yields: about 5 dozen cookies (or equivalent bars).

Heli Camping

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How to make camping more fun.

It was spring 2006 when my friend Ryan suggested I go with him to the Big Sandy Shoot and give helicopter rides. I didn’t know much about it, but I had nothing else do to that weekend. So I loaded my tent, sleeping bag, and air mattress into my helicopter and followed Ryan’s friend’s Sikorsky S-55 helicopter to the tiny town of Wikieup, about 40 minutes north of Wickenburg on highway 93.

I detail the events of the weekend here.

Helicopter and TentAlthough I did fly into this spot and I did sleep in this tent the night before, I didn’t sleep in this tent where it’s shown in the photo. I moved the tent to take the photo. With a dome tent like this, it’s easy. Just empty it out, pick it up, and put it where you want it. The helicopter was in such a pretty spot and the early morning sunlight make it look really beautiful. Why not take advantage of the light?

I cooked up the photo for possible advertising use. Flying M Air (my helicopter charter company) can do overnight excursions. There’s no reason why we can’t offer heli camping.

But, so far, we just haven’t had any calls for it.

Oh, and for the record, I’ll be back at Wickieup for their autumn (forgive me, Miraz) shoot in October. Anyone want to come along for the ride?

Getting Seriously Dugg

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Wow.

On Wednesday, I wrote a story about my friend Jo’s 18-year-old computer mouse. It got a bunch of hits.

On Thursday, I realized it might be of interest to Mac users, so I submitted it to MacSurfer’s Headline News, not sure if they’d pick it up since it was already about a day old. I’m not sure, but I think they did. Throughout the day, I the piece got another 2000 or so hits — which is pretty standard for my posts listed on MacSurfer.

Somewhere in the middle of the day, the story got Dugg. By the time I realized it, it had 17 Diggs. That is a huge amount for any of my posts. My site doesn’t usually attract the Digg crowd for reasons I can’t fully comprehend. (I’m not sure what the Digg crowd is looking for and assume I just don’t deliver it.) I mentioned it on Twitter and got a handful more Diggs. But certainly not enough to get it on Digg Home page or even anyplace it might be noticed. By the time I called it quits for the day, it had 34 Diggs and about 4,000 hits. Cool, I thought.

This morning, I sensed trouble when I attempted to check my Web site. I got a 503: Temporarily Unavailable error. I figured that my ISP must be doing some maintenance. I tried a few times more. On the third try, I got through.

And saw that according to the WP-UserOnline plugin, I had 225 people online. At once.

This was mind boggling. One of the limitations of my hosting account is 50 concurrent hits to my MySQL database at once. That database is shared between 3 sites. I’d had MySQL errors before during peak times. I have a sneaking suspicion that my ISP may have removed that limitation. Which would be a great thing.

I think.

I Made the Digg Home PageThe 18-year-old mouse post had 10,000+ hits and 485 Diggs at 5:35 AM MST. But by the time I got to the Digg Home page — and found my post at the very bottom of the page, as shown here — it had 500 Diggs. So that means 15 more Diggs in less than 5 minutes. And another 23 Diggs in the time it took to write this. Egads!

Meanwhile, W3Counter, which I use to get hit stats for the site, reports over 7,000 visitors for today. I’m assuming that they use GMT rather than my local time. That would make it 11 hours rather than just 6. I cannot imagine more than 1,000 hits an hour.

Now if you’re saying “What’s the big deal?” you obviously don’t find these numbers as impressive as I do. You need to understand that this is a relatively unknown, limited-interest site. On a good day, I’d get 1400 hits from 1200 visitors. Today is off the chart — and it has just started.

And I’m worried. Worried about bandwidth usage. I’ve never used more than 10% of my total monthly capacity, but I’ve also never had what could turn out to be a 20,000 hit day. Worried about people who want to visit the site and can’t because of those darn 503 Error messages (I just got one again). Or, worse yet, worried about people who want to visit additional pages on the site and can’t because of those darn 503 error messages. After all, the site’s got a lot more to it than a story about an 18-year-old computer mouse finally crapping out.

So it’ll be interesting to see how today plays out. I assume the post will fall off Digg’s home page sometime soon and the flood of visitors will stop. Things will get back to normal. But until then, I’ll need to worry just a little.

And wonder whether getting seriously Dugg is a good thing.