I crafted 50 tiny, framed bird pics to send to friends this Christmas

I have watched and photographed birds for fun for the last ten years. I took 45,000 photos, observed 440 species, and made countless memories. For Christmas this year, I made tiny framed prints of more than 50 of my favorite bird photos and sent them to friends all over the country.

jeff sitting with elbows on the table smiling with assorted mini framed bird photos cover the table — Jeff with many of his mini framed bird photos

Finding mini photo frames 🖼️

Finding tiny photo frames that were nice and not antique-y took some searching. I ended up finding an assortment of cute ones in-person at Michael’s.

Most of the frames were 2.5” x 3.5” with a few odd shapes thrown in.

*A handful of various mini frame styles I found at Michael’s*

The printing 🖨️

Some of the photos fit straight into the frame as-is, but many needed to be cut to size or taped gently to small mats inside the frame. Some frames required cropping the prints with scissors and taping them to the frame mat.

loose printed mini bird photos on table with paper scraps and a few finished framed pictures — A handful of tiny bird photos about to be put into various frames

Framing the birds ✂️

Some of the photos fit straight into the frame as-is, but many were cut to size, or taped gently to small mats inside the frame. I used the frame back or glass to preview and cut to the final size.

on a table sits a small print of a yellow-billed cuckoo with markings of where to cut it to fit into a honeycomb-shaped yellow frame with a bee on it. — Isn’t that frame cute? Perfect for a bird with a snack.

The photo labels 🏷️

My initial plan was to print labels with a label maker for each frame. That was slow and expensive, so I quickly pivoted to designing them all at once using Excel and formulas written by AI.

an uncut sheet of species labels printed on white 8.5 x 11 sticker paper sitting on a table surrounded by mini framed bird photos — The freshly printed bird species labels on sticker paper ready to cut and apply

sheet of cut species labels printed on white 8.5 x 11 sticker paper in a small pile on a table surrounded by mini framed bird photos and a pair of scissors — I made each label two inches wide

To automate making the label creation, I downloaded a CSV of my eBird photo data, and filtered it to only include the printed birds. I then asked ChatGPT to write a Excel formula to generate the labels using that data.

Expand to see the Excel formula

="🐤 " & Sheet1!C7 & " | 📆 " & TEXT(Sheet1!G7, "m/d/yy") & CHAR(10) & "📍 " & Sheet1!P7 & ", " & Sheet1!N7 & " | © Jeff Mann" & CHAR(10) & "🎄 Christmas 2024 | " & ROW(A6) & "/42"

Honeycomb paper and bubble mailers for a safe journey 🐝

The honeycomb paper was fun to wrap the frames with, and it provided a nice unwrapping experience.

frame wrapped in honeycomb paper — Honeycomb paper is so satisfying to stretch around the frames. ASMR realness.

The quick holiday card insert 💌

These double-sided holiday cards were printed at Walmart the night before, using a template from their site. My original plan was to handwrite blank cards but I ran out of time. 😆

the jeff's holiday card insert with "Merry Christmas" on the front with photos of jeff, mubark and the dogs, and a message on the back talking about the photo project with pictures of the project in process — *This printed holiday card was a last-minute addition to the project to so I could avoid handwriting 50 blank cards at the end.*

Post office drop-off 📫

That morning was spent weighing and creating shipping labels on the USPS website. It beat waiting in for the postal worker to process each one!

We worked up to the wire and barely got the packages to the post office before they closed.

jeff with his pile of packages at the post office — Jeff with a hill of finished packages

mubark and jeff at the post office — Mubark and Jeff, feeling accomplished at the post office

The little framed birds are beginning to arrive 🦉

It is delightful to get pictures and hear from my friends as they receive their mini birds. More pictures of the tiny birds in their final homes to come!

This Christmas I framed 50 mini bird photos and sent them to loved ones