Awesome Things: #1 (Stickygram)

I'll admit that I was kind of late to the Instagram party. When I first heard about Instagram, the joke was that the entire app was dominated by people snapping photos of their lunch and hipsters posting photos of . . . whatever it is that hipsters like to photograph, I suppose. It took me ages to realize that Instagram could be a lot of fun (particularly when taking a road trip out into the middle of nowhere and wanting to leave a trail of clues, just in case you disappeared mysteriously).

As much fun as Instagram is, though, I found myself just a little disappointed. I kept thinking that there must be something "more" I could do with my pics and their hip filtered looks. Enter Stickygram:

Stickygram connects with your Instagram account to let you upload your pics. From there, you can do something that I think is very cool:

StickyGram began as an experiment by Kejia Zhu and the team at Mint Digital to create physical objects from the web. Bringing Instagram into the real world turned out to be an idea that excited people. After much prototyping and coffee, the StickyGram service was born.

For a perfectly reasonable price, Stickygram will send you nine-packs of magnets (each is about the same size as the photo appears on your smartphone) featuring your favorite photos! This service fixed two problems for me - I got to do something tangible with my Instagram photos, and I finally have magnets on my fridge that aren't those freebies you get from food-delivery places in college. Not only does my fridge look snazzy now, but my friends have been pleasantly surprised to come over and see snapshots of the fun times we've had together!

Despite the fact that they're shipping from overseas (assuming you live in the U.S., at least), I didn't find the wait to be terrible. The package that arrived was definitely worth it!