2007 Calendars -- Heads Up
Here's what you can do to help -- 1. Upload cute pictures! My requirements are there must not be any photoshop/editing effects (halos, words, borders, etc.) and no people in the pictures. Make sure you are uploading file sizes that will make adequate prints. If you are unsure, upload them at Shutterfly.com and see if they think the resolution is adequate for 4x6 prints. 5x7 or 8x12 is even better but you don't need to go larger than that. Larger file sizes will give me more flexibility for cropping. 2. Rate photos in the gallery! Go through the gallery and give photos "star" ratings -- I will start picking from the highest rated photos. Just browse around and rate your favorites -- it is fun and it will help me make good choices. 3. Interested? Let me know if you plan on ordering a calendar so I get an approximate idea of the quantity involved so I can pick an appropriate printer. 4. Custom Text / Photo Blocks. If there is enough interest, I will allow people to purchase "date blocks" where you can put text (such as a birthday announcement) or a photo into the date block on the calendar. This is extra work and a bit more costly, but I think the added customization would make the calendar really special. To offset the costs, I would charge extra for the privilege. Custom text would be non-exclusive (other people who share the birthday would also be listed in the same block) but a custom photo would be give exclusive rights to the block (first to pay gets the block). I was thinking it would be roughly $5 for custom text and $15 for a photo. This is in addition to the price of the calendar. The downside is it could be hard to write your own appts or whatever on a date that has a photo in it. 5. Announcement Column. As an alternative, I could place a column on the upper (photo) page that lists birthdays and pictures. That is less hard to do so I would only charge $10 to highlight your poochie. The downside here is that it would be slightly disruptive to the "theme" for each month. I think it would be too messy/complicated to do both, so I would only do one or the other (Custom Blocks or Announcement Column). Let me know what you think or if you have any questions![/b] |
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Woohoo!! I can't wait! 
I already know I would like to buy at least 3. I'm so excited! LOL |
| I'm there! Can't wait! |
Can't wait!  |
| I say keep it simple and skip the extra's. Make too bit a project of it and you might not want to continue it next year! |
| I will definitely buy one. And I agree with George--keep it simple or you might go nuts! |
| I can't believe it's that time already! I agree. You might start going nutty with all the requests and special items
I did have one thought. What if there was 1 or 2 pages in the front or back of the calendar that lists out birthdays in month/date order? |
Stacy wrote: I can't believe it's that time already! I agree. You might start going nutty with all the requests and special items
I did have one thought. What if there was 1 or 2 pages in the front or back of the calendar that lists out birthdays in month/date order? That's an interesting idea. To do it, though, I would still need to go with the more custom printing option because the standard ones only permit you to do a cover and 12 monthly pages. So basically, adding in an extra page or two would require me to do a custom layout, which means I would be able to do the custom blocks as well. I would not actually be frustrated from the customization -- it seems cool to me. But only if there is enough interest -- say, a custom block each month. I do think the blocks seems more manageable than trying to an announcement column with pics just because it would be hard to make it look good. I guess the question is would people pay $5 extra to have a text announcement (birthday, anniversary, etc.) in the date block portion of the calendar? |
ahh I cannot rate myself!  teehee
This is my fav! 
or this one... 
Somebody vote for me! 
PS Do you mail the calandar to Canada? I would love one even if my precious isn't in it. |
| Very cute! Can you upload larger file sizes? Those are too small to make good prints.
Yes I will mail them anywhere, but shipping is extra to international destinations. I will provide more info on prices and shipping closing to the date of purchase. |
| Hi If you go to my photo album I know one of them is 1024 x 1544 pixels.
or http://photos.oes.org/displayimage.php?pos=-5547 |
| I think there are full sizes of those already?
http://photos.oes.org/displayimage.php?pos=-5759 http://photos.oes.org/displayimage.php?pos=-5547 |
| Ack! I was too slow! |
| Oh ok -- good! |
| I would definitely buy one... or more!
Will you ship to Canada? |
Sheepie Heaven wrote: I would definitely buy one... or more!
Will you ship to Canada? Great! Yes! I will ship anywhere, but international shipping charges will be added to the cost. |
| I have enjoyed this year's calendars tremendously!
I definitely want to purchase two copies and would be interested in the block customizing, too. I'll get started rating my favorite photos!!  |
| You can count me in. |
Yep, I'm there too!  I love sitting at my desk and looking up at my calendar. Can't imagine a day without it any more!
I agree, keep it simple. Thanks so much for doing this, Val!! |
| Me too....
Kim & Maizie |
| I'm excited since I missed last years. Count me in for two. Will you make sure there's at least one photo of each dog from the forum? I would feel really bad if Hannah and Copper got left out. Not sure how the votes will go and I'd hate for it to turn into a popularity contest or clicky type of thing that excludes instead of unifies.
Thanks so much for doing that. What an incredible thing to do. I appreciate it. |
Las Vegas Sheepie Lover wrote: I'm excited since I missed last years. Count me in for two. Will you make sure there's at least one photo of each dog from the forum? I would feel really bad if Hannah and Copper got left out. Not sure how the votes will go and I'd hate for it to turn into a popularity contest or clicky type of thing that excludes instead of unifies.
Thanks so much for doing that. What an incredible thing to do. I appreciate it. It is definitely not a popularity contest. I base it solely on what pictures I think are cute, of sufficient image quality (file size, sharpness, etc.), are not enhanced with borders, words, etc., and fit within the various themes I develop for each month. Based on that, some of the most frequent posters don't actually upload usable photos. I asked people to rate the photos they think are cutest just to help me find the best ones. It takes a long time to comb through the gallery for pictures. I am happy to include anyone who makes a point of asking as long as a suitable image is provided in the gallery. If you want, you can see sample pages from this years calendar by clicking on the camera under my post and going to the second to last page of images (currently page 9 but I think that may change when I upload more pictures). |
Definitely check out last year's pages! I think it was very well balanced and fair last year. I dont' mean this in a bad way, by any means but Val didn't even really know anyone last year and just picked pictures by the criteria she had mentioned so no favoritism involved. (Although, now that Val has dog park buddies, maybe that will change! P.S. Toby and Carl said hi to Maggie!  )
If someone would be excluded, it would be for technological reasons rather than any favoritism or cattiness. |
| Val, I wonder if you would want to take "submissions" .... ie each person interested could submit one or two of their fav pics for consideration.
I don't know about everyone else but I didn't write on mine I just hung it as a thing of beauty. I like the idea of being able to purchase a date block for an announcement or pic. ALso, are you going with Kodak this year again? I made acalender last year through shutterfly.com that was actually a biger size. Don't know if you were looking around or not. |
Tasker's Mom wrote: Val, I wonder if you would want to take "submissions" .... ie each person interested could submit one or two of their fav pics for consideration.
I don't know about everyone else but I didn't write on mine I just hung it as a thing of beauty. I like the idea of being able to purchase a date block for an announcement or pic. ALso, are you going with Kodak this year again? I made acalender last year through shutterfly.com that was actually a biger size. Don't know if you were looking around or not. I don't know about taking submissions -- that puts alot of pressure on me to fit particular photos in that may or may not work from an image quality or theme perspective. I found it worked best to scan the gallery for pics that worked for each page. Anyone who wants their photos in the calendar should make sure their favorites are in the gallery. And again -- I really encourage everyone to give star ratings to their favorites so they will stand out as pictures that people enjoy. I would not mind if people wanted to make a special request to have their dog included but I need the freedom to choose the pictures I think work best. I'm going to assume that the people who replied in this thread that they intend to buy a calendar would like to have a picture of their dog(s) in the calendar. If you do want to bring particular photos to my attention, that's ok too. You can just post the picture in this thread but please understand that it may or may not work in the calendar. There are lots of cute photos that just don't present well in a printed collage format. And depending on how many suggestions I receive, I might not have time to explain why a particular photo didn't work. I really don't want anyone to have hurt feelings about any of this. Re date blocks -- I like the idea too but it does not seem there is enough interest to warrant the extra work. Re other calendar producers -- I've tried Shutterfly and a couple other companies in the past for personal calendars. I tend to like the thick paper of Kodak better than the larger size of Shutterfly, but I will go with one of several good companies depending on who is giving the best pricing deal at the time I am ready to place the order. Last year Kodak had a great sale that enabled me to sell the calendars at the standard rate and collect extra money that was given to Ron in support of this website. I'm hoping for something like that again this year. I was thinking this year it might be nice to have a page devoted to sheepdogs with other dogs or other pets (cats, etc.) But I am not sure there are enough pictures like that to fill up a whole page. So if you like the idea, please post more pictures of your sheepie with other dogs or other animals. |
| You DA BOSS!!! And a FINE boss you are!!! |
| Thank you for taking the reins on the calendar, Val! We appreciate it and definitely trust that you'll do a stellar job just like last year! XOXO! |
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