CUSTOM GIFTS FOR HER, MADE FROM YOUR PHOTO

Every house has a cupboard with gifts in it. Candles nobody lit, a scarf in the wrong colour, a set of things that arrived in a box. None of it was bad. It was just somebody else's taste, handed over with good intentions.

The gifts that stay out of the cupboard have one thing in common. They are already hers before you give them. A photograph she loves, printed on something she uses, is not a new object entering her house with opinions attached. It is a thing she already owned, made physical.

This page is about the mother, the sister, the friend, the grandmother, the colleague leaving after nine years. If the woman in question is your partner, the tone is different and it is worth reading custom girlfriend gifts instead.

The mistake almost everybody makes

Choosing the photo you think is most flattering, rather than the one she likes. These are very often not the same picture, and she is the one who has to look at it. Go through what she has already posted, printed or set as a screen background. That is the shortlist.

Her pet

The safest choice on the list and the most ordered. Cut to the animal's outline, the background disappears and what is left is the shape of her cat, which sits in any room regardless of what colour the walls are.

Her children, for a mother or grandmother

Grandmothers are hard to buy for because they have reached the stage of buying only what they need. A printed photograph of a grandchild needs no charging, no instructions and no subscription, which puts it ahead of most modern gifts by default.

A year, as a collage

Several photographs on one cushion, which suits a friendship or a year with a lot in it. Four images stay readable at 40 cm and nine at 60 cm. Past nine it stops being photographs and becomes a pattern.

Somebody she misses

A child who left for university, a partner working away, a parent who died this year. At full length this becomes something to hold rather than something to look at, which is a different gift entirely. If it is a memorial, say so in the notes and it gets handled personally.

Send the original from the camera roll. A screenshot, an image forwarded through a messaging app, or a picture saved from social media has been compressed at every step, and the detail that was thrown away cannot be put back. At 20 cm you may not notice. At 60 cm you will.

Group photographs are not a problem. Send the picture and say who to use, and we crop to them before the preview goes out.

Older scanned prints usually work well at the smaller sizes. If a photograph is genuinely too soft to print at the size you want, you will be told that before you pay rather than after it arrives.

Which format

For her cat or dog, the guides at custom cat pillow and custom pet pillow cover the photography in detail. For several images at once, see custom photo pillow. For something full length she can sleep against, see custom body pillow, and for a shape rather than a square, custom shaped pillows.

• Custom girlfriend gifts, where the photo she likes of herself is the whole problem
• Custom anniversary gifts, marking a specific year rather than a person
• Custom Christmas gifts, including when to order in December
• Custom gifts for him, the same problem from the other side
• Custom pillows, every shape and size we print