Honoring our Veterans

Memorial Day is this Monday, May 27th.  It is a US federal holiday which occurs every year on the last Monday of May. Memorial Day is to remember the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.  Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate both the Union and Confederate Soldiers who had died.

A great way to remember those who have given their lives while serving, is to help and honor those still alive who have served. 

Memorial Day 2013: Honor the Fallen by Lifting Up Veterans

by, Christine Pelosi CoFounder, DNC Veterans and Military Families Council

"As the president reminds us, our moment of national reflection should not be just a minute, but a sustained commitment to honor the fallen by lifting up our veterans."

SUPPORT HOMELESS VETERANS, INC.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that 131,000 Veterans are homeless on any given night . In addition, approximately twice that many experience homelessness over the course of a year. Conservatively, one out of every three homeless men who is sleeping in a doorway, alley or box in our cities and rural communities has put on a uniform and served this country

According to a study by Cornell University
In the year 2011, an estimated 19.1 percent (plus or minus 0.32 percentage points) of non-institutionalized civilian veterans aged 21 to 64 years reported having a VA service-connected disability in the United States.  Wounded Warrior Project is one of several organizations supporting and helping disabled veterans.  You can donate to their cause online.

We offer Military Garden Flags that can also be personalized to honor both veterans and those who are actively serving any time of year.

Thank you for reading.

Marilee and Josie
Custom Flags and Gifts



Navy Garden Flag





Personalized Air Force Flag

 

Creating Collages for Custom Garden Flags and Photo Gifts

I have always loved collages.  They are perfect for indecisive people like me.  When I have a group of photos and can't decide which ones I like best for a print or photo gift , I just mix them all together a make a collage.  Voila, the problem is solved. 

We would like to offer the same option to our customers who would also like to utilize the versatility of collages to print on our gift products or custom garden flags. I have made some really fun photo plaques for friends and koozies for parties all with collages.  We even have some ideas for some custom garden flags.  The problem sometimes can be actually putting together the collage.  It can be time consuming and not everyone has sophisticated photo editing software.  I knew there was some free software offered online, so I decided to do some research and find out if there w
ere any of them that I would recommend.

Once I began my search I was amazed at just how many free photo editing softwares there were online.  I started with the ones where you download the entire program to your hard drive. A program named Picasa is the only one of those that I would recommend.   Not that the other programs were bad, I actually never got that far, but every one of them had bunches of annoying add ons with them that downloaded with the program,like toolbars and search aids and there was no way to get the software without them.  With one program I even got a nasty bug that took several days to get rid of.

I had used Picasa in the past, but there were a couple small things I did not like about it so I ventured ahead to check out what else was available.  There are photo editing softwares where you upload your photos and do the editing and collage making all online.  This saves space on your hard drive and anytime you don't have to download you are reducing your risk of viruses.  Again there are tons of these, I tried maybe six or seven of them.  Most of them you can download your end product to your computer, some you can only share online.  Some of them would only upload one photo at a time and did so very slowly others would upload whole files of photos very quickly. There are a good variety of templates that vary from program to program depending on what you are wanting to do.  I would recommend you do your own experimenting to see what works best for you.  The one that I liked best was one called Kizoa .It would upload groups of photos that were large files very quickly, it had a great variey of templates and different effects you could use, you could even do animation.  You could crop your collage at the end to fit standard photo sizes and you could download your final product to your computer to print and store. The only drawback for me was that you could not choose a custom size for your collage which is needed for doing the different shaped items we were wanting to do.

My final choice was to stay with Picasa for most my collage making although I might still go back to Kizoa on ocassion. I must say there were a few quirky things about Picasa that drove me nuts, but once my daughter showed me a few basic tricks and I looked at a few tutorials online and basically knew a little better what I was doing, its really a very fun and functional program.  Also I found there is a Picasa forum with some very helpful members if you have some questions you can't find answers for yourself.  So give it a try and have fun.


Thank you for reading

Marilee and Josie
Custom Flags and Gifts


  http://flagsandgifts.com/upload/index.php?route=product/category&path=7

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is next weekend and like all holidays has a reason and an origin that goes beyond just the commercial part of gift giving, so I decided to do some research.  A woman named Anna Jarvis is considered the founder.  Her mother who had  eleven children had often mentioned the desire for a day set aside to honor motherhood.  After her mother died Anna decided to make her wish come true.  She campaigned tirelessly many years until it was officially declared a US holiday in 1914.   Anna's hopes was for children to show there love and respect for their mothers in simple and sincere ways with handwritten notes and handmade gifts.  Ironically, as the holiday became more and more commercialized, Ms Jarvis became very disillusioned with the holiday and spent the latter part of her life trying to get it removed from the calendar.

As gift giving on Mother's Day continues to be a tradition , which as a mom, I see nothing wrong with.  We do need to keep in mind what the holiday is all about and take the time to truly appreciate what Mom's do.  At this point in my life, Mother's Day becomes three layered.  As a mother myself, remembering my own mother and watching my daughter be a wonderful mom to my grandson.  So many grateflul memories and hopes for the future.

Simple gifts that show some effort and thought behind them are often the best, especially ones that are personalized.  Photo gifts are a perfect way to express sentiments and save memories. 

Here are some gift ideas at Custom Flags and Gifts.

Photo plaques

Happy Mother's Day and thanks for reading.
Josie and Marilee
www.FlagsandGifts.com