Disneyland at Christmas/Holiday Season Superthread #2 (Closed)

[Funball]

omg! the christmas thread!! it lives on!!

 

[Funball]

i want to manage a check in thread someday....

 

[mvf-m11c]

I thought we have some pics of "Believe...In Holiday Magic" fireworks, here are some of my pics from last November.

Here are my pictures from "Believe...In Holiday Magic" fireworks on 11/18/10. These were actually videotaped from my Sony HDR-XR520V camcorder and than I took each frame from my video and made it into a pic. Hope u like it and this is part 1 of Believe.

 

[funatdisney]

OMG, Bret. These are just stunning! Especially the first and last pics.

 

[Sherry E]

i want to manage a check in thread someday....

Sara, take a look at that DLR Meet sticky at the top of the page. I think we still have 2 months available that need check-in threads. Without looking at that sticky myself right this second, off the top of my head I think we have April (coming up soon!) and maybe June still available.

If you want to take one of those to manage, feel free and I will add it into the Meet sticky. As far as I know, there is no one lined up to do April yet and that is rapidly approaching.




I'm more than halfway through this thread in terms of adding photo links to the Table of Contents. I left off with one of Sara's posts on Page 15, so I have to continue on from there and add whatever came in after that.

 

[Funball]

Sara, take a look at that DLR Meet sticky at the top of the page. I think we still have 2 months available that need check-in threads. Without looking at that sticky myself right this second, off the top of my head I think we have April (coming up soon!) and maybe June still available.

If you want to take one of those to manage, feel free and I will add it into the Meet sticky. As far as I know, there is no one lined up to do April yet and that is rapidly approaching.




I'm more than halfway through this thread in terms of adding photo links to the Table of Contents. I left off with one of Sara's posts on Page 15, so I have to continue on from there and add whatever came in after that.

ok sherry, i will look . i of course said that with out thinking that i have the bday thread and map thread to manage also.. but i will look to see what months have not been done yet and think about starting one for that month!

 

[mvf-m11c]

Even though we are 9 1/2 months until the Holiday season at DL, got to keep it interested for people who are planning to visit DL during the Holiday season.

"a bug's land" with some Holiday decorations

 

[tksbaskets]

OK, you all are making me want to book a DL trip for this coming Christmas!!!

 

[Sherry E]

Those fireworks photos are outstanding, Bret! And you're right - we did need some of those pictures in this thread. And you were right again - we needed some A Bug's Land pictures, for sure (you must have looked at the Table of Contents to see what we were missing/lacking so far!)

Anyway, I haven't had a chance yet to continue on from where I left off with the remainder of the Table of Contents, but I'll get to it. The bulk of it is done. The rest of it won't take as long. I couldn't believe how many photos there were to categorize in the first 15 pages!!

 

[areweindisneyyet]

Bret. Those photos are amazing. We just love those fireworks. I feel like I am standing on main street.

DL is getting closer everyday.

Mia

 

[funatdisney]

I was playing around on snapfish after I spent a good chunk of my day downloading pics for my free calendar. I made this college picture of some of the Christmas photos I took last year.

The print will be delivered by Friday. I can't wait to see it!

 

[KCmike]

Great collage. You did a nice job on it.

 

[funatdisney]

Thank you, Mike. To tell you the truth, they make it very easy for you to make. I don't have a choice of where the pictures are placed. They have a shuffle button that shuffles around the pictures you selected. I wish they did give one the ability to move pictures around. I would have swapped two of the pictures (the window pic with the wreath on it and the other window pic just three over) in the above college. They are the same size and it wouldn't not have changed the sizes of the other pictures. All of the photos were taken by either me, DD or DH. I cropped, added tints and resized them, and pushed enter when needed. They are fun at make, and I plan on making more, but with different themes than Disney.

 

[Pjimmeyer]

Nice collage.

 

[Sherry E]

Thank you, Mike. To tell you the truth, they make it very easy for you to make. I don't have a choice of where the pictures are placed. They have a shuffle button that shuffles around the pictures you selected. I wish they did give one the ability to move pictures around. I would have swapped two of the pictures (the window pic with the wreath on it and the other window pic just three over) in the above college. They are the same size and it wouldn't not have changed the sizes of the other pictures. All of the photos were taken by either me, DD or DH. I cropped, added tints and resized them, and pushed enter when needed. They are fun at make, and I plan on making more, but with different themes than Disney.

Liza - I don't know if it works differently for the collages than it does for the calendars like what I made, but you could have put those photos where you wanted. After you shuffle them to the layout you like best (out of the options Snapfish gave you), all you have to do is just remove the two photos from their spots and them re-add them in to where you wanted them. Did you try that?

You could have settled on the shuffle layout you liked best, then removed both the window/wreath photo and the other window photo (3 over to the right) and then put them back in the border/spots you wanted without shuffling again. I did that several times with my calendars and it worked. I would have preferred more flexible shuffle options - or to create my own layout entirely from scratch, but I got two free calendars so I guess I can't complain!!

In any case, your collage came out very nice! Did you order both the collage and a regular 12x12 calendar (with the free code) or just the collage only?

 

[Sherry E]

Since we are sharing what we did with our DLR Holiday photos...

I've already posted mostly about this in my TR, but I'll post it here for anyone out there who wants to make a nifty free calendar before February 28th.

Snapfish is offering a free calendar. Here is the information to get it:

http://promo.snapfish.com/disney/disneymemoriescalendar1

After you enter their sweepstakes to win a free Disney trip, they will send you a code for a free calendar. (I ended up with two codes through a fluke and, thus, with 2 different free calendars.) You can choose the Disney Parks layout or one of the other layouts for a 12x12 calendar:

http://www.snapfish.com/snapfish/storecalendars/size=12x12


The 12x12 calendars are spiral bound and printed on sturdy card stock paper. They are shrink-wrapped in plastic. They are 13-month calendars, but you don't get any photos on the 13th month. You can start the calendar with any month you choose. They are quite large and the colors and clarity of the photos is very good in person. This is a much, much better quality calendar than any others I have gotten in the past - it is much less flimsy. You can squeeze in up to 15 photos per page and shuffle the layout around, or you can go for a more artistic approach and only do one or two photos per page to showcase the images better. You also have the ability to do limited editing of your pictures in Snapfish. The Disney Parks layout has Disney Parks archive photos on each page (including things like Blizzard Beach, etc.) - some of them are from DLR and some from WDW.


This is the first calendar I ordered. (The second one arrives tomorrow, Valentine's Day.) I used mostly photos from my December 2010 DLR trip, with a few from my November 2010 DLR trip thrown in. I did a more minimalist approach with this first calendar in terms of the layout of most of the pages, while the second one will have many photos crammed onto each page. I played around with the arrangement on calendar #2 quite a bit more to get to the point where I liked them, and to get certain photos larger while others were smaller.


Anyway, this is the front cover of calendar #1 (all the photos around the perimeter are the Disney Parks stock photos; the two in the middle are mine):

February 2011 (I didn't start the year with January):

March 2011:

April 2011:

May 2011:

June 2011:

July 2011:

August 2011:

September 2011 (aside from the big photo in the center, the 3 photos across the top are mine):

October 2011:

November 2011:

December 2011:

January 2012:

The page for my February 2012 (or whichever month you have as your 13th month) has no photos. But they did stick in this thumbnail page that shows you all of your pages together:

The back cover has a small shot of your front cover:

They also print your name and address on the back cover at the bottom.

The colors look even better in person.

Can't wait to get the second calendar!

 

[funatdisney]

Liza - I don't know if it works differently for the collages than it does for the calendars like what I made, but you could have put those photos where you wanted. After you shuffle them to the layout you like best (out of the options Snapfish gave you), all you have to do is just remove the two photos from their spots and them re-add them in to where you wanted them. Did you try that? You could have settled on the shuffle layout you liked best, then removed both the window/wreath photo and the other window photo (3 over to the right) and then put them back in the border/spots you wanted without shuffling again. I did that several times with my calendars and it worked. I would have preferred more flexible shuffle options - or to create my own layout entirely from scratch, but I got two free calendars so I guess I can't complain!!

In any case, your collage came out very nice! Did you order both the collage and a regular 12x12 calendar (with the free code) or just the collage only?

Sherry, I have not done my calendar yet. I bought the Gallery CD at DL, since I felt that I didn't have enough pictures of my own to do the calendar. I am in the process of downloading them on to snapfish. There are 340 pictures on the CD and it is taking me some time to go through them and choose which ones I want to add for the calendar. I am surprised how lacking the Holiday section is on the CD. There is hardly any pics of the Christmas decor and a few good ones of Halloween Time. Overall that section is a sorrowful tiny batch of photos, IMHO. Also, there are no WOC pics. I am glad that I have more than enough Halloween Time, Christmas photos and WOC photos of my own to use. The real nice thing is the pictures of DCA. There are a few pictures of SF GG bridge and mosaics of California that was on the Greetings store and the building where the bathrooms are. I am glad that I a have a record of what the front of DCA looked liked before the renovations. Oh, there is one picture in the Holiday section that is a treasure: the picture of the Candy Cane C-A-L-I-F-O-R-I-A-N letters with no construction in the back round. I have an idea for that one when I can get to it. I will post it here.

As for the college picture. I don't think there is a way to move the pictures around yourself. I am still learning snapfish so maybe I am not aware I can yet. I tried to move the pictures, but to no avail. I looked for function key to enable me to move pictures around, but I couldn't find any. I have Photobucket down pretty well so I have that experience to drawn on. In fact, I did learn that I can make a college, click on it and save it to my hard drive without having to add to my cart. I then hit shuffle again, ending up with a different layout. I can then either save it or send it to my cart for printing. The layouts I saved to my hard drive were downloaded onto Photobucket and I posted one here and another one on another thread. I do think that enhancing, cropping, and playing with my pictures are easier on snapfish than Photobucket. Jusy my opinion.

I sent the college I posted here to Walmart for printing. I picked it up this morning and it looks great! Remember I took my DD(13) and her friend to DL for her birthday back in November? I made a college of the pictures I took of them, and I am having two copies of the college printed by snapfish. I plan on framing them and giving one to DD and the other one to her friend as a surprise. those look awesome.

Well back to the download.

 

[Sherry E]

Sherry, I have not done my calendar yet. I bought the Gallery CD at DL, since I felt that I didn't have enough pictures of my own to do the calendar. I am in the process of downloading them on to snapfish. There are 340 pictures on the CD and it is taking me some time to go through them and choose which ones I want to add for the calendar. I am surprised how lacking the Holiday section is on the CD. There is hardly any pics of the Christmas decor and a few good ones of Halloween Time. Overall that section is a sorrowful tiny batch of photos, IMHO. Also, there are no WOC pics. I am glad that I have more than enough Halloween Time, Christmas photos and WOC photos of my own to use. The real nice thing is the pictures of DCA. There are a few pictures of SF GG bridge and mosaics of California that was on the Greetings store and the building where the bathrooms are. I am glad that I a have a record of what the front of DCA looked liked before the renovations. Oh, there is one picture in the Holiday section that is a treasure: the picture of the Candy Cane C-A-L-I-F-O-R-I-A-N letters with no construction in the back round. I have an idea for that one when I can get to it. I will post it here.

As for the college picture. I don't think there is a way to move the pictures around yourself. I am still learning snapfish so maybe I am not aware I can yet. I tried to move the pictures, but to no avail. I looked for function key to enable me to move pictures around, but I couldn't find any. I have Photobucket down pretty well so I have that experience to drawn on. In fact, I did learn that I can make a college, click on it and save it to my hard drive without having to add to my cart. I then hit shuffle again, ending up with a different layout. I can then either save it or send it to my cart for printing. The layouts I saved to my heard drive were downloaded onto Photobucket and I posted one here and another one on another thread. I do think that enhancing, cropping, and playing with my pictures are easier on snapfish than Photobucket.

I sent the college I posted here to Walmart for printing. I picked it up this morning and it looks great! Remember I took my DD(13) and her friend to DL for her birthday back in November? I made a college of the pictures I took of them, and I am having two copies of the college printed by snapfish. I plan on framing them and giving one to DD and the other one to her friend as a surprise. those look awesome.

Well back to the download.

I have trouble uploading photos no matter which photo sharing site I use, but I found it to be slightly faster on Snapfish than on Photobucket. But it's easier to share photos from Photobucket on websites like the DIS.

You can't select your own shuffle layout on Snapfish, but if you want to switch those 2 photos, you have to select one of the choices from the shuffle options Snapfish gives you - whichever one you like best. Once you settle on the layout you can live with, if you want the window/wreath picture over in the right-hand side position (vertical shot) and you want the other vertical window shot over on the left, what you have to do is remove each photo from its current spot. Then you add back in the window/wreath photo on the right and the other window photo in the left hand spot. You remove them and then re-add them. As long as they are both vertical shots of the same size/dimensions, it should not change your shuffle layout at all. So, in other words, you are not moving them, per se. You are keeping the layout you settle on, and then you are taking out two of the photos and then re-adding them in the spots you want.

That's good to know about the PhotoPass Disney Gallery CD - I had not gotten one yet but I was considering it in the future (if they still have them available). I had heard that the holiday selection was not great, but you've confirmed it. Ah well, I suppose it's still a great deal to get it and then get your own photo CD free, even if the holiday section is lame.

 

[funatdisney]

I have trouble uploading photos no matter which photo sharing site I use, but I found it to be slightly faster on Snapfish than on Photobucket. But it's easier to share photos from Photobucket on websites like the DIS.

So true, which is why I'm glad that I could save my college to my hard drive to download it to Photobucket.

You can't select your own shuffle layout on Snapfish, but if you want to switch those 2 photos, you have to select one of the choices from the shuffle options Snapfish gives you - whichever one you like best. Once you settle on the layout you can live with, if you want the window/wreath picture over in the right-hand side position (vertical shot) and you want the other vertical window shot over on the left, what you have to do is remove each photo from its current spot. Then you add back in the window/wreath photo on the right and the other window photo in the left hand spot. You remove them and then re-add them. As long as they are both vertical shots of the same size/dimensions, it should not change your shuffle layout at all. So, in other words, you are not moving them, per se. You are keeping the layout you settle on, and then you are taking out two of the photos and then re-adding them in the spots you want.

That's good to know about the PhotoPass Disney Gallery CD - I had not gotten one yet but I was considering it in the future (if they still have them available). I had heard that the holiday selection was not great, but you've confirmed it. Ah well, I suppose it's still a great deal to get it and then get your own photo CD free, even if the holiday section is lame.

I will give it a try, but I will use another college, since the one above is already printed. I do like the print I picked up this morning. And ready to frame for Christmas 2011.

 

[Sherry E]

Liza -

Okay, as I kind of suspected earlier, the way Snapfish handles the layout for collage posters is different from how they handle the calendar layouts like the 2 that I did. I just went onto their site to start a collage (even though I am not ordering a collage) just to see what happened, so I would know what was going on.

Now I see exactly what you mean - you're absolutely right. With the collages, you can shuffle the layout around, or even change the orientation of the collage from portrait to landscape - but you cannot do what I suggested earlier and select the shuffle layout you like, then remove & add specific photos to the locations you like.

However, you can do that with the regular spiral-bound calendars - you can settle on a shuffle layout and then remove certain photos of the same size and dimensions & replace them in the slots you want, keeping the same shuffle layout.

The other thing I noticed is that, as you said earlier, you can save the collage layout to your hard drive without adding it to your cart on Snapfish. However, you cannot save the calendar layout(s) on your hard drive! It's not possible to do that with the calendar, from what I saw.

Isn't that interesting? So the collages and the calendars are handled much differently in those two ways.

Either way you slice it, we can see that the DLR Christmas photos look great in both a collage format and in the free calendar format. So it's really a win-win situation, even if you have less flexibility with the organization of the collage posters.