The New Photo Blanket

A while back, I bought a Groupon for a 50" by 60" custom mink photo blanket by Printerpix. It took me a while to get around to making it. I had never done it before, and I just couldn't decide what I wanted the blanket to be about.

There is nothing like an expiring Groupon to make up a girl's mind, though. So the first week of May, I finally decided. It came to me in the middle of the night, which is when my brain apparently does its clearest thinking.

I would pick a favorite outdoor photo and simply turn it into a blanket! But when I uploaded the picture I selected, and placed it on the blanket template online, it gave me a warning that my image was not high enough resolution, and would turn grainy. Instead, I decided to make the blanket a photo collage containing several of my favorite outdoor images.

There were various templates available, and I finally selected this one because it had a mix of two different sizes and layouts of photos. I thought of the blanket as a three-part grid, each containing five pictures: one larger one in portrait mode, and four smaller ones in landscape mode.

It took me about an hour to choose the photos I wanted from my photo library. In the end, I selected mostly pictures I had already included in my photo books. I thought of my husband's and my favorite central Pennsylvania places, and tried to represent them through the seasons.

The favorite places represented include Shingletown Reservoir, Black Moshannon, the Hammersley Wild Area, Hyner Run, Slate Run, Sproul State Forest, Hicks Run, the Quehanna Wild Area, the Wykoff Run pool, Whipple Dam, Spring Creek, Cherry Run, and the Tom Ridge Wetland. Yes, you have already seen many of these photos on these pages!

The blanket arrived on Thursday afternoon, and on Friday morning, Dexter and I opened it up (it was in a regular plastic blanket bag with a handle), placed the blanket on the bed, and put it through its paces. We are happy to report that we LOVE it! It is very lightweight, more a throw than a blanket, and it is very silky-soft to the touch.

And even better, now when we are at home, we can sit and look at some of our favorite places. It's not really like being in the woods, exactly. But it is nice to be reminded of those favorite places, while enjoying the comforts of home. And I'm absolutely certain that sleeping while covered in a blanket containing pictures of places we love will indeed bring me sweet dreams. . . .

The song: Bruce Springsteen, Cover Me, from 1984.