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9 Affordable V-Day Gifts

by Evan Shamoon on February 9, 2009 at 09:50 AM


Make a mix

Just because you're not in high school anymore doesn't mean you're too old for the illustrious mixtape. Of course, unless your mate has a cassette fetish, "tape" is no longer the medium of choice; instead, we'd suggest making a digi-mix. Put together your own personalized mix of MP3s, stick them onto a flash drive or CD, and voila: instant gift. We'd suggest creating custom cover art -- again, working with mixed media like photos and your own artwork, as well as a carefully chosen typeface. After creating your 355 x 355 pixel work of art, go into iTunes, hit Command or CTRL + "i" on the tracks you want the album art to appear on, drag an image to the blank Album Art window, make sure the box is ticked next to Album Art and press OK. Now you're good to go.

Another option, inspired by Academy Award nominated film 'The Reader,' is to record yourself reading an entire book, either with your computer's built-in mic or a cheap USB mic you find online. (If you have no idea what she'd like to hear, might we suggest 'The Reader?') Import the file into iTunes, and then convert it to an MP3, and finally burn it to a CD, slap it onto one of those many thumb drives you've got laying around, or put it directly onto her iPod. That's gold, folks!

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