Posters for grandchildren

I've been wracking my brain as to what to send  to my grand kids for Christmas.  I've been the book grandma, but as they get older not all of them have developed a love of reading.  Big SIGH!!! Some have developed a love of drawing which is almost as good and I have sent drawing supplies to some.  I don't like to send toys especially trendy toys because I want to send something personal that can help us relate to each other. All books get read by me before they get given as gifts so I know they are appropriate and we can discuss them.  Of course with drawing we can share our current projects but I still have a couple of kids that kind of baffled me this Christmas.  Then I came up with the idea of the zoo collage.  I do not live close enough to take them to the zoo in person but I can take them to the zoo through my photos.  I am going to have this blown up to poster size so they can put it up on their wall and remember me.  I find it hard to be a long distance grandma and any ideas would be appreciated.
☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

New discovery: Collages

I have discovered that on my Picasa 3 free software it has a very nice and easy component for making collages of several different kinds. The top one is simply several different pictures that are made translucent and layered and then merged together. The computer does most of the work for you. You pick out the pics and push a few buttons. Even though this is pretty by itself it makes for a beautiful background or desktop. Look closely to see the individual flowers.

It also makes more traditional collages and with just a few pictures you can make the background wide enough to put labels under the photos. I plan on doing this by labeling the insects that visit my flowers as soon as I find out what they all are. (www.bugguide.net)

The program also does a mosaic around a larger central photo; which with all the different flowers I saw by the roadside or grew in my garden turned into a bright, colorful wall hanging with my favorite flower the daisy in the middle.

I did up a family Christmas collage that I had considered giving to each family member next Christmas. Lots of Family memories there.

The last thing I tried was framing each picture before I did the collage, which did make a difference, but on some of the small ones some parts of the frame was cropped off.

All in all I had a lot of fun on this program and I'm going to keep experimenting with it. Might just get some worth framing as gifts for Christmas. Or maybe get my picture to tell a more complete story.