Creating your store and uploading your image
Like most of these services, you need to create an account on CafePress, which creates a "store" on their Web site. Once you've got a store created, you'll need to log in and navigate to your Media Basket, which is where you upload your images.

We had a ton of problems with this, as you can see in Figure A.

FIGURE A


The images aren't showing up. Roll over picture for a larger image.

According to CafePress, they were experiencing problems with their servers while we were working on this project. They claim to have fixed the problems and all the images will show up just fine. This problem was annoying, but heck, I'm certainly not going to talk about having everything on a Web site working. We're always trying to fix something on our sites here at ZATZ as well.

Creating your product
Once you've created your store and uploaded all thirteen images, you'll need to start creating your calendar using the Product Designer. Although tedious, this part was fun because it's where the calendar really starts to come together.

First, as shown in Figure B, I selected the cover image from the images I'd previously uploaded and placed in my Media Basket.

FIGURE B


Once you upload your cover, the calendar starts to come alive. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Once this is selected, click next. I then selected the photos for each of the months, as shown in Figure C.

FIGURE C


All the pictures are uploaded and ready to help you keep track of your life. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Once all the pictures are uploaded, you select a price, initialize your store, and you're ready to sell (or buy) your calendar, as shown in Figure D.

FIGURE D


Here's my calendar. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Quality of results
Although we had some problems using the Web site, we finally finished the calendar's setup and placed an order.

And, although it took about two weeks to arrive, we were very impressed. The quality of the printed calendar was excellent. Other than a tiny logo on the back of the calendar, there was no way to tell this hadn't been produced as part of a production print run. The paper stock was solid and the finish was clean.

We give CafePress' calendar production service a 4 out of 5. It'd have gotten a 5 out of 5 if the Web site wasn't so troublesome initially.

OUR RATING: 4 of 5