CUSTOM GIRLFRIEND GIFTS MADE FROM YOUR PHOTO

This is the one piece of advice on this page worth more than everything else combined, and it is the thing people get wrong most often.

You will be tempted to choose the photograph where she looks most beautiful to you. That is a kind thought and it is frequently the wrong file. Most people have a small set of photographs of themselves they genuinely like, and that set is chosen on criteria you cannot see from the outside. She is the one who will look at this thing every day.

There is an easy shortcut. Photographs she has posted, printed, set as a screen background, or sent to somebody else are photographs she has already approved. Choose from that list and the gift lands. Choose outside it and you are gambling.

When to skip her face entirely

Some people simply do not like pictures of themselves, and no amount of good intention changes that. If she is one of them, print her cat instead. It is the same gesture, it carries none of the risk, and the reaction is usually better anyway.

A romantic gift says you love her. She already knows that, which is why the tenth version of that message is quieter than the first.

A gift built on something only the two of you would understand says something harder to say and much harder to fake. It says you were paying attention. A phrase one of you says constantly, an object from a specific day, an animal you saw once and never stopped referencing.

The cutting is what makes this possible. Because the pillow can be cut to any outline rather than left as a square, a joke with a shape becomes an object, and an object is much funnier than a printed picture of the same thing. Anything with a clear edge in a photograph can be cut to that edge. See custom shaped pillows for what survives the cut and what gets thickened.

The safest single order on this page

Her cat or her dog, cut to the animal's outline. Nobody has ever been annoyed to receive their own pet. The guides at custom cat pillow and custom dog pillow cover how to photograph them so the print holds up.

Size carries meaning here whether you intend it to or not. 20 cm is a keepsake. 40 cm is a real cushion that lives on a sofa. 60 cm is a statement, and 150 cm is a declaration.

Early in a relationship, stay small. Later, the size becomes part of the joke and you can go as far as you like.

If you are apart

Long distance is the case where full length genuinely earns its size. At 150 cm it is something to sleep against rather than something to look at. See custom body pillow for how the tall print area changes which photographs work.

Practical notes

Send the original file from your camera roll rather than a screenshot or an image forwarded through a messaging app, because each of those has already been compressed. Production is three days from the moment you approve the preview, so this works as a last minute gift in a way most made to order printing does not. A collage of several photos is covered at custom photo pillow.

• Custom anniversary gifts, if the date is the occasion rather than the person
• Custom couple gifts, for one gift the two of you share
• Custom gifts for her, for mothers, sisters and friends rather than partners
• Custom boyfriend gifts, the same question from the other side
• Custom pillows, every shape and size we print