Easy Photo Gift Tags Using Picasa

Last year I had a tutorial for making photo gift tags using picnik.  Well since picnik is long gone I decided to try it in picasa, and it was even easier.  So here is a quick tutorial on how to make some photo gift tags using picasa.  I use picasa quite a bit.  It’s free and the editing tools are getting better.

First, open picasa and choose a picture that can be narrowed a bit.  Since all my kids’ heads lined up pretty well, I knew that it could be cropped a bit and not cut off their heads. I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to move their placement in the collage (a feature that would be excellent but that is not possible yet in picasa), so they had to be centered pretty well both horizontally and vertically.

After choosing one, right click and click on ‘locate it on disk’.

Copy and paste it into the window that pops up.  I made two copies of the picture.

Click out of the window.  I rotated the three pictures clockwise once.

 

Then I selected each picture (just one at a time) and clicked on the green tack at the bottom of the screen while each one was selected.  This will “hold” the pictures in a tray.  Click on the create button at the top of the screen, then click on Picture Collage.

I had my settings set at a 4×6 print.  My grid spacing was set at none.

I clicked on “create collage”.

Then found my collage and started to add words.  I didn’t add words before creating the collage because I wasn’t sure how much of the picture the collage would cut off.

So add words, making sure they are not too close to the top or sides, and you are finished!  You could even have a part that says “TO:” and be able to fill it in as you attach to gifts.

I had mine printed at Costco, so three tags cost $0.13.  Not too shabby!

Punch a hole and tie to your gift.  Or you can attach to cardstock and make a cute tag to go on a wrapped gift.  Or just skip the cardstock and keep it simple.