December 1, 2009
Elf Your Grandkids with ElfYourself
Don’t you just love photos of your grandkids? Did you know you can use your digital photos to make unique holiday gifts for your family? Wouldn’t you agree that homemade gifts are more enjoyable to create than buying store-bought presents? It’s economical. And your family and grandchildren will cherish them even more.
I’ll show you how to create your own fun video of your grandkids—as jolly little elves! It’s easier than you might think. They are free to use and free share with your family and friends.
“Snowball fight!” created with JibJab.com
Click on the little Play triangle below.
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. ~Kahlil Gibran
I enjoy discovering innovative websites. I surf the Net with my “Grandparent eyeglasses” on, looking for fascinating, easy-to-use places where I can produce fun creations for my grandchildren. I ask myself, “How can this website be useful to me and other grandparents?” (What’s in it for me?) These websites spark my imagination, and I think how exciting it would be to design something for my grandkids to enjoy.
There are many really cool websites on the Internet you can use to connect with your grandkids by creating entertaining projects for them. I wrote about some of these in December’s Cyber-Savvy GRAND column in GRAND Magazine. Sites to develop projects from your digital photos, like Scrapblog and SmileBox. Sites for photo sharing, like Picasa, Kodak Gallery, SnapFish and ShutterFly. (Read our Picasa review here.)
Dancing Coo Coo Clock elves created with ElfYourself.com
Let’s look at two websites where you can create videos starring your grandchildren: JibJab.comand ElfYourself.com.
I created the two videos above at JibJab.com and ElfYourself.com. The ElfYourself site is powered by JibJab’s innovative software. They employ the latest technologies such as face recognition.
ElfYourself from OfficeMax is a whimsical online program that allows you to create videos of elves dancing—with your grandchildren as the stars of the show. Simply upload the photos you want to use, adjust the face to fit (size, outline, and rotation), choose a ready-to-use dance, and click the button. It quickly produces your video. You can post it on your blog or family site, and email the link for free. If you like, you can download the movie for $4.99. (Note: ElfYourself is only available during the holiday season.)
JibJab has a variety of ready-to-make videos, pictures and ecards. Some are free. Some require a $12.00 annual membership. Downloads are $4.99, or only $1.99 with a membership. The steps to build a video at JibJab.com are similar to the way described above. You upload photos to create “heads” (faces). You choose the video, movie, or picture to make. Try a JibJab Risk FREE Trial!
JibJab’s Photo-Maker lets you create fun still pictures like this one.
At ElfYourself.com and JibJab.comyou can also purchase other products like mugs, ornaments, greeting cards, etc — all with your picture on them.
So go make some videos of yourself or your grandkids. Give a video or picture to them as a merry little gift. They will enjoy seeing it over and over again. It’s sure to have the whole family giggling with delight.
In future posts, GrandparentsTLC will review more websites to create fun stuff for your grandchildren.
Enjoy! – Grandpa Shayne
Have you used JibJab or ElfYourself or another cool online program? How has it enabled you to connect with your family and grandkids? Please share your comments. We enjoy reading about your experiences.
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Filed under Cool Websites, Gift Ideas, Holidays by Grandpa Shayne
Comments on Elf Your Grandkids with ElfYourself »
As soon as I created each video, I emailed the link to it to my daughters. My grandkids watched them again and again and they all laughed like crazy.
Grandparents: You are welcome to share the link to your elf video(s) in a comment here if you like! It would be fun to watch your creations.
Here’s a few tips when using ElfYourself.com and JibJab.com —
1. If you need digital photos of your grandkids, ask your family to email the photos or a web link to you. You can save photos off your family websites to your computer, then upload them.
2. Before starting, create a free account at JibJab.com so it will save your “heads”, videos and pictures.
3. When you are fine-tuning the “heads”, try to make them as accurate as possible.
What a fun idea!!
Oh these are the BEST!!! My kids were elated and asked to watch the videos from Grandpa a million times. Every time they watched them they laughed and laughed and laughed. They had SO much fun watching seeing their silly selves. It also made for some fun conversation with Grandpa when we talked to him next! Thanks for the FUN stuff!
Hi! I’ve been enjoying some prime-time grandkid time of my own the past two weeks so it took me awhile to get here, but boy, was it worth it. HOW FUN!
I can’t wait to try it with my grandkids’ pix. 
Definitely will be tweeting and stumbling!
Hi my kids are enjoying their videos a lot with their grandparents and they watch them again and again whole day.Its really a fun idea for grandparents and grandchild too.Thanks for sharing this.
Hey Shayne, I´m sure every kid would love to get such simple yet amusing gift
My little daughter always loves when I show her something like this. Kids don´t give much importance to big and expensive gifts instead they love to have fun with their parents and grandparents
This is a cool site! My family uses it and the grandkids get a kick out of it!
Moomette’s last post: Best of Moomette’s Magnificents Blog Posts 2009
This is such a wonderful thing that has been built for us to use and still is being offered for free. I don’t use it enough. Thanks for the reminder.
I just created a Valentine’s Day video for my wife, Grammy Tanda. It’s on JibJab:
http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/Dj5f5H5RTJ4WOiHP
I have never seen videos as cute as these are. Thanks for sharing the information about this site.Kids appreciate the simplest of things and sometimes we forget that. thanks again for sharing.
Yes these are absolutely too much fun for everyone concerned. Frankly I had not thought of putting the grands in before. A great idea for next year too.