I received a Sherpa Blanket from Collage.com in order to facilitate an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Hi, guys! Today's post is actually a product review. I know I don't do a whole lot of those, but when I was contacted by Collage.com to review one of their photo blankets, I was curious enough to agree. I thought they were cute but how hard would they be to design? Do you need an art degree to make a cute blanket? Also, most of the photos I have of the kids were taken on a phone, so would that affect the quality of the printing? I've got the answers to these questions and also a walkthrough of the creation process (actually super easy), a critique and a test of the final product, and also a giveaway at the end so that one of my readers can create the photo blanket of their dreams for free! [CLOSED]


I started by uploading all of my favorite photos of the kids and the software actually fit them all in and adjusted the layout for me. This is a great option if you want a lot of photos to cover the entire blanket without a background showing.


Since I'm playing with all of the features I went further to check out their custom layouts, and boy do they have a lot of cute options to choose from!

You can try out lots of different collage styles with and without text, but they also have templates for single photos to commemorate an anniversary or a birthday. Those would make an amazing gift.


I ended up choosing a photo frame style and had the idea to put a row down each side of each child from baby to now and run the photos of them together down the center.


Once you choose your template, just drag and drop each photo where you want it. The software will automatically crop them to fit, but you can also select photos and recenter them to put the focus where you want it.


Next is choosing a background. This isn't necessary if you like the white background.


You can even add text to your blanket such as "The Smith Family" or a wedding date to make it super-personal.


There are options to give your photos a border or use a photo filter to make them black & white or sepia-toned.


Right before I went to order, I noticed a black border on the bottom of this one. When I clicked on the photo, I noticed an edit button underneath which brought me to a complete photo editor with some great tools. I was able to crop out that black line in a flash!




The colors were vivid and the quality was amazing considering the size of the prints they made from my cell phone photos!


The fleece backing was so super-soft.


The whole blanket was edged with a tight blanket stitch to keep it from shedding or unraveling. <3


Surprisingly, the tag says that it's washable. Let's do it.


I washed it in cold on a normal cycle, then tumble dried on low.


The colors didn't bleed at all and they're just as vivid as before. That's awesome because, with kids and pets, everything needs to be washable around here.


Even after washing and drying, the fleece stayed super soft. So glad because I've had instances of fleece melting in the dryer and this one held up and kept its fluff. :)


I am absolutely delighted with the quality of this blanket overall and would recommend it to anyone.


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Have you ever ordered from Collage.com? What is your favorite custom product? Would you keep it for yourself or give it as a gift? I love to read your comments!