Here is how you can get me to design your custom made photo gift.

1. Click on this ZoomIn link or the one on the sidebar.
2. Create an account for yourself on ZoomIn.
3. Upload your photos. You can even import from Picasa or Flickr.
4. Set up your billing address.
5. Select the product you wish to create from here. Some interesting ones are

   Photo books – make a beautiful album from last vacation’s snaps or party pictures. If you are a food blogger or a craft blogger, I can even create a book out of your creations!

   Canvases or collages – Turn your clicks into objet d’art! Gift someone or show off on your wall!!

   Tea or coffee mugs – A great Rakhi gift or a gift for someone who has recently started going off to office or living independently!

   T – shirts – wear your memories

   Tote bags and many more…

6. Drop me a mail using the contact form on this web site or write to t2t <at> naari-thewoman <dot> com.

So, get started my friends. Raksha bandhan is round the corner and this year you can give a personalized photo gift to your brother or sister.

Let the mails start comin’!!!

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I am so very grateful to each one of you who is reading this post right now. I got so many mails, so many kind words, encouragement for starting my new service that I thanked Kanhaji for making me meet you in this life! I am blessed to have a friend like you!!

I’ve decided to name my service as “Times-To_Treasure”. T2T for short. Hope you’ll like my newest baby.

Of all the mails that came, there were some common queries which I thought would be prudent to address in a blog post like this.

The biggest one was: “Why are you doing this? What do you gain by giving your service free?”

Here’s why: I am the most kind, considerate and helpful friend you ever have come across. I have endless supply of money with which I do not know what to do. And since I do not have to work for money, I thought of working for humanity.

Crap. I know that does not make sense at all. (Although I am hoping the first sentence comes close to what you think about me.. Selfish, but that’s me )

This service has a strong business model. It is free. For you. But I’ve taken an affiliate membership with ZoomIn, which means every time you click on my link to buy something from them, they pay me commission. Now I thought that if I were to ask you to go through the trouble of clicking on my link, you should get something worth in return. And one thing which I have to offer is ‘my creativity’.

That’s the whole deal really.

The second question people had was, “how will this work”? That is work in progress still and I was hoping to resolve it by now, but looks like it is glitch-ier than I thought.

I have been talking to ZoomIn support guys to help me out on this, but currently they have no way that I can create something over your photos and share the creation with you so you can pay. So I thought of using PayPal to invoice you for the money you owe to ZoonIn and when I receive payment, I make payment to ZoomIn and get the item delivered to your shipping address. Should worked, right? Of course it should!

So, I conceived this idea of starting a service of my own. I planned and planned and worked and worked my brain. Connected with others, networked with friends. Even got support people @ ZoomIn involved.

Things looked good.

And then, ‘ouch’!!!

I was so very confident that PayPal would be my thing to create invoices etc., but turns out they do not support Indian Rupee as a currency. No plans to do so anytime soon too. Checked out several others but again either they support only limited clients or limited invoices or are very very expensive!!

Aargh.

So may be I’ll have to find a ‘work around’. My software buddies will raise eyebrows, I know. I know I cannot possibly meet the friendship day deadline. But I think I can make it in time for Raksha Bandhan.

Pray for me as you always do. Kanhaji will find a way!

Amen.

P.s. Most people who deal in Indian currency seem to prefer bank transfers for receiving payments. Do you think I should consider that route? Would you be willing to use it? Do let me know.

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The month of celebrations!!

The month of Goodwill!!!

Check out the list of celebrations we have this year in August

• National Friendship Day (Sunday, August 1st)
• Indian Independence Day (Sunday, August 15th)
• Women’s Friendship Day (Sunday,  August 15th)
• Onam (Monday, (August 23rd)
• Raksha-Bandhan (Tuesday, August 24th)

See what I mean? This is just the general list. Apart from all the birthdays / anniversaries of loved ones etc.

What better way to celebrate these days than to give gifts? And how cool will it be if you can come up with ‘personalized’ gifts for each occasion!

That’s the theme of my new ‘service’ which I’ll be ready to offer in just a couple more days.

Almost all of us have digital photographs these days. Some sweet memories linked with our friends, colleagues, spouses, parents, kids and other loved ones. But what do we do with them?

• Stack them away in some forgotten folder on our lappy?
• Write them out to disk and keep them for ‘one day’?
• Or go find a photo store, take prints and pile them into albums.

We watch our memories transform from

to something like

That’s it?

How about something like

or

??

Like it? Read on, there’s more

How about transforming some of your images into photo books (like the ones above) or canvases or mugs or tote bags ?

Exciting?

I am planning to offer to design these things for you. At 0 (yes, that’s a zero) cost of designing! *

All you end up paying is what ZoomIn** will charge you for printing and shipping. No extra dime. In most cases these items will cost you comparable (or even lesser) than your local photo print stores.

You can click here to take a sneak peek into the products and prices and here for some of the special offers.

I am onto the last bit of puzzle finalizing how we are going to do it. You know, the technical details you wouldn’t like to hear about. And then bang! I’ll be at your service! Designing cool stuff from your photographs to be used for yourself or your home or to be given as gifts.

For sure you do not want to miss a thing like this! Keep watching this space or better still, sign up here so you get updates in your inbox. You don’t want to get left out of the “0 cost” thingy, do you?

Sincerely,

Yours in celebrations,

~Varada

* Let me make it clear here that this 0 cost is a limited time offer and may not last long.

** ZoomIn ships to any doorstep in India, US, UK and Canada for now. Rest of the world will have to wait – either till ZoomIn starts shipping there or I find another provider to do something similar. Extremely sorry, rest-of-the-world!

Progress check:

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