When MyHeritage introduced Mixtiles, I kind of yawned. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. I’m not yawning anymore.
Mixtiles are photos printed on lightweight tiles that hang on your wall without nails.
Where did my skepticism come from?
- I have no more wall space.
- I already have photos hung.
- I already have photos waiting to be hung that I’ve never gotten around to hanging.
When a new product emerges in this market space, in part because I write about emerging developments, and in part because I just love this community, I feel some obligation to work with new things. How else can I write about them for you if I don’t try them myself?
I’m getting ready to write an article about holiday gifts and I thought maybe I’d include Mixtiles in that article.
Scratch that.
Mixtiles deserves its own article, so here we are! Prepare to have fun. (And no, if anyone is wondering, this is not an affiliate linked product. It’s just that I love it!)
Not Yawning Anymore
So, what happened?
After pondering a bit, I realized that Mixtiles have several benefits:
- I DON’T have printed copies of many photos that people have sent me electronically over the years and printing them would be a pain.
- The photos I do have are mostly in black and white and often fuzzy. At MyHeritage, you can both enhance and colorize photos, separately, for free if you are a subscriber. I wrote about photo enhancement, here. If you’re not a subscriber, you can enhance/colorize a few for free and you can try a 14-day free trial subscription, here.
- Mixtiles are all the same size, 8 by 8 inches, so it’s easy to coordinate a snazzy display.
- Mixtiles are lightweight and adhere to the wall without nails, which is why I have an entire stack of pictures that aren’t hung already.
- Mixtiles are less expensive than printing and framing photos – $11 each before any discounts – and there’s almost always a discount.
- You can order Mixtiles from home and don’t have to go frame-shopping or anyplace else for that matter.
- You can have them shipped anyplace and even include a gift note. Hello holiday shopping!!!
I realized that many of the photos I’ve received over the years are snapshot size and grainy, and I’d never frame them. I knew that MyHeritage plus Mixtiles would improve the photos, and print them, and I could have a wonderful Ancestor Wall in the stairway – something I’ve always wanted.
I had a coupon to order half a dozen. I’m embarrassed to tell you how many I ordered (28). When you place an order, you receive a welcome discount. I’ve ordered three times and the first time, the discount was about half off and the second time, 35%. The more you purchase at once, the less they cost each. I ordered three times and each time the discount was slightly less. I should have planned better – and now you can.
However, Mixtiles are only $11 to begin with (and shipping is free) so it’s easy to see another photo on your computer and think, “Oh, I’d like to add that one too.” Which is exactly how I wound up ordering 28.
Design
I decided that I wanted to colorize my photos. I realize not everyone wants to do this, and that’s fine. To me, color in their faces, even if not perfect, brings my ancestors to life. Even the first photos of me are black and white although I remember the colors of that plaid dress in the photo taken when I was about 5 at one of the department stores.
Using Powerpoint, I experimented with layouts. You probably don’t need to do this, but I did so I could share with you.
I uploaded any photos not already enhanced and colorized to MyHeritage and did both easy processes. I tagged the photos to the correct person so they are attached to my tree. Then, I substituted the enhanced/colorized photos in the layout for you to see.
Drum roll please…
What a difference enhancement and colorization made.
These are the photos that I submitted to Mixtiles, with the exception of the black and white one of my paternal grandfather in the lower right-hand corner. Mixtiles said that the original photo I wanted to use wasn’t of sufficient quality and might be blurry, so I substituted a different one.
I never saw my paternal grandparents in person – so these photos are as close as I’ll ever get.
Working with these pictures brought back such memories, in part because when possible, I selected photos of my ancestors that included me as a young child. Of course, I was too young to remember the ones with my father and grandmother.
I do remember “helping” my Mom make those matching dresses and wearing them oh so proudly. I doubt I was much help in that process, but for a 4 or 5-year-old, it was so much fun. That was my first sewing project. Until I saw this picture again, I never really realized those matching dresses all those years ago were the seed for my love of quilting today.
I have only one photo of me with my father and only a couple with my maternal grandmother. They both died when I was young and photos were rarely taken at that time. I am so pleased to be able to include them in my Ancestor Wall that I’ll be building along the stairway during the holidays.
How Does Mixtiles Work?
Here’s a short video about how you can order your Mixtiles through MyHeritage along with a blog article.
One important thing to note is that the higher scan quality of your photo, the better the end product. I was the lucky recipient of many of the photos I have today, electronically, so I can’t rescan them.
You will be provided with the opportunity to adjust and crop your photos once selected and the amount of “zooming in” that you can do is dependent on the size and quality of the photo.
You can see that the photos I selected are not the views of these photos that I ended up using after adjustment, zooming, and cropping. In one case, the photo at left, I couldn’t enlarge enough to focus in on just my grandfather, so I selected a different photo for his spot on the wall.
OK, truth be told, I ordered a Mixtile of this family photo too, after shifting it down so no one’s head is cut off – but I found a different photo to represent my grandfather in the primary layout.
I had a glitch with one photo and accidentally included it twice, in two separate orders. I noticed the problem immediately when I received the second order confirmation. Mixtiles resolved the situation immediately via email, offering to either refund the money for the one tile or to give me a free coupon code for one tile.
I’m still going to publish a gift ideas article in a few days – but today – I took a walk down memory lane and gave myself a gift – thanks to the team at MyHeritage and Mixtiles!
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