If you’re looking for a beautiful canvas, this may be the company for you! It is creative, high quality, special, and makes a statement. Collage.com tries to make it easy to put the memories together and then up on a wall. Wonderful projects for home, the office, and gifting too. For me, when picked to do this review I knew right away what theme I was going to focus on, the people in our lives who make it worth living. I have been surprised over the years by how some people have pointed out that they cannot find themselves in photos around our home. While we have many photos, I have to admit that most are photos of our 4 children. We never meant to hurt feelings and certainly we have been working on this issue over the last few years. With a collage canvas though, I knew I could make sure many people felt at home when they visit us! Have you ever had this issue with some friends and family feeling left off your walls?
Because of the generous canvas size offered by the company I went to work picking about 50 photos to use. These included photos of family members and friends, and of the kids as well. It wasn’t easy picking as I have tens of thousands of photos. Sadly they are not labeled well and like so many reading this I have them shoved in files sitting in the dark to hardly ever see the light of day. They need to be on the walls! I know that you know this, but who has time? It doesn’t take long and is worth it I promise! I have to admit I didn’t find all the people I wanted to for my photos, but I found enough to make me smile at the memories and it made me feel lucky to have them in our lives.
Collage.com offers shapes and words to start your creative project with, because of the new “CollageWord” options, there are literally thousands of options to pick from! Picking can be hard so my suggestion is to open a few browser windows and start creating a few collages with difference designs, when you finally pick the one you love most, close the others and order the perfect one you created! I started off trying to get my photos to fit into the word “shiny” as it is a word that means something to me, all things shiny and worth something and specially and good. I admit, this is where I let my geek flag fly! It comes from a show I loved for a decade and if we are talking about my family is has to be brought up given that we have a sugar glider named Inara and Mal, two dogs named Simon and Kaylee, and a daughter named Zoey. Alas, my photos didn’t even half fit in the word I picked and I had to grumble and move on to another choice. I tried a few different shapes and finally settled on the shape of a house. It fit the theme of home I was going for nicely!
The program on the site easily lets you upload the image you want to place on the canvas. It then automatically tries to get all the images into your shape. Being a program it does not understand that aunt Michelle is on the left of the image and so it leaves me only seeing her arm. Some photos are not seen at all. Over and over I have the program scramble and place the images. I tried and move them around myself but there is no option to resize the photos. If you delete one thinking it give move room for others, the program picks a random photo to enlarge, negating your attempt to increase the space for other photos. With the house shape, one of the hardest parts is the chimney and the slanted roof, this would often cut off the top of the photos, this meant I needed to have photos with people on the bottom half of the image or to the right or left corners. Photos, good ones, are not normally taken like that. It was a challenge I admit. It took me a bit to get it to just right. I am however rather a perfectionist with such things!
I was even able to stick in a little image of my favorite show, an image sure to make those closest to us who know, get a giggle out of it! Not every image made it into the end product and so I must plan another one of course! The process is fun to do, even if I found myself hung up a few times. It is easy enough anyone can do it, even a child I would imagine so you don’t need to be a photographer or good with computers.
UPDATE: Collage.com cares and wanted to let me know after reading my review that they have released an iPhone/iPad app (Android coming soon!) which allows you to resize the images to help with the issue of cutting off peoples faces. It can be found here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/collage.com/id592060053?mt=8
They plan to roll out a huge site update by the end of June that will allow re-sizing to combat this. Register at Collage.com to stay in the loop about this launch.
My final product is something I love and I just had to share it right away on facebook and tag some of my loved ones who are in it. Take a look:
(I managed to get the word shiny in at the bottom! Of course your last name or favorite saying could go there instead!)
In less than a week my canvas arrived. I knew it would be wonderful as I have other canvases around my home but none of them are this high quality. It was noticeable enough that I had to point it out to my husband and I made a note right away to make sure to mention it in this review.
To our wonderful readers collage.com has offered a discount code! Your 30% Promo Code: BLOGWITHMOM
GIVEAWAY!
1 winner will receive a 16 x 20 Collage Canvas collage canvas, a $106 retail value!
Dates: April 27th to May 15th 2013
I love the collage mug! And the iphone case! Basically, everything. Thanks for the chance to win.
This would make an awesome gift. I love that there is a promotion as well. I would love to have the canvas with the home on it. I think it would make a freat gift for Mother’s Day.
I thought about doing one in the state of Texas.
Bobbie Anne
I would LOVE the Football shape since both my sons play!
Thank you so much for writing up a review! As an FYI we released an iPhone/iPad app (Android coming soon!) which allows you to resize the images to help with the issue of cutting off peoples faces. It can be found here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/collage.com/id592060053?mt=8
We plan to roll out a huge site update by the end of June that will allow re-sizing to combat this. Register at Collage.com to stay in the loop about this launch.
Thanks again – let me know if Collage.com can do anything to help!
Warm Regards,
Dan
Dan Hess
Collage.com
The heart is my absolute favorite!
awesome giveaway~ collages are such a wonderful and unique way to show pics!
in my excitement clicked submit too quickly!
would love the LOVE shape or the texas shape!
I loved “KISS” or “HOUSE” both are just lovely!
I’d go with the house shape
I would go with the dragon or the four leaf clover…or maybe the jack-o-lantern.
Thanks for the chance to win!!
I would choose the elephant for my daughter
Your work is beautiful!
I love that! It’s gorgeous!
My fiance suggests a dragon. I will have to think further on it…lol
I like the bear shape
I like the word “Sisters.”
I love the heart.
Thanks for the chance.
mogrill12@gmail.com
The LOVE square is my favorite!
def a heart shape!
Love your website. Well Design. Thanks
Tennis racket & ball
I like the pet shape
I would pick the rectangle.
I would use the heart.
I think the House shape is my favorite!
I would choose the Four Leaf Clover.
Tough decision, but I think I would do one in the Christmas tree shape.
The house shape.
The lighthouse! Reminds me of home!
I like the house or custom/manual.
Single image!