A new star map for babies and kids

Knowing this, we wondered how we could make our star maps even better for those looking for a unique way to celebrate a birth date. For adult birthday presents, out Classic and Night Sky star map posters are now available in 5 different colors, to cater to most tastes.

Yet for new baby celebrations or children birthdays, we felt that we could do more, by creating a star map poster specially designed with babies, nurseries, kids and kids rooms in mind. And here comes…

Little Star, a unique star gift for the little stars in your life

See your Little Star’s own sky

The latest addition to our star map family features:

• Hand-painted planets and comets kids of all ages will love.
• A personalised star map showing the sky when the new baby was born, with exactly all the stars and constellations.
• A large title at the top in a fun font, fully customisable with the phrase of your choice.
• A personal message area at the bottom, with enough space to write a nice message to your special child.
• A choice of 3 different colors to perfectly fit in any nursery or kids room.
• A design that will grow with the child.

I wanted to create a star map kids of all ages — or children at heart — would love, and that would easily find its place in any nursery or kids room.”  (Rocio, Greaterskies Head Designer)

In a word, Little Star is born to celebrate the Little Stars in your  family.

The star map designed for kids rooms

Little Star is quite unique in the star map universe: it resolutely means to find its place in nurseries and kids room. So in a clear departure from the neutral designs of other star maps, Little Star not only proudly features whimsical design elements; it also comes in 3 coordinated color schemes:

• Back
• Mulberry
• Artic blue

So you can choose the colour that best suits the nursery, kids can choose their favourite, and siblings can each have their own!

Create your favourite Little Star map

As always with GreaterSkies, your custom star map comes with your choice of fast free delivery of quality prints or immediate download of high resolution files. Some things never change.

Try Little star with the birth date of your choice

Want to see what your little cutie’s sky looks like? You only need to type in the place, data and time. We’ll create your star map poster and show you a preview right away. Give it a try, it only takes a minute and it’s free!

Get a FREE preview of your own sky

The post Unique gifts for girls and boys: Little Star appeared first on GreaterSkies.

How cool is that new teal color? Perfect gift for your ash grey cat, it goes so well with the hair! Seriously, this map would find its place in many modern interiors, even those without grey cats.

Choose your Night Sky map colour

Choose your night sky color

From now on, before you personalise your star map with your place, date and time, you will have for each design a choice of colors, in addition to the choice of print and frame dimensions that we introduced earlier this year.

In the process, we have updated our product page to make the choices clearer and the map creation process easier for our customers. This is the new page.

When you click on a color, all the products photos will change and show the star map in that colour. This way, you can really see what the poster will look like, and decide which you like best, rather than just trying to imagine from the small color dot. You can try here the Night Sky star map and here the Classic star map.

Our colors of the night sky (or the day sky)

At this time, both the Classic and Night Sky star maps will come in 4 colors besides our usual deep black.

Our designer has chosen the colors so the nearly 8,000 stars and constellations show at their best, and the star map poster design fit in a variety of home decors. The available colors are:

• Night Blue
• Teal
• Mulberry
• Chocolate

This is a detail of the Classic star map print in Night blue, the color we most often associate with the sky at night.

The Teal takes some liberty with the true color of the night sky, in fact it is closer to some day skies hues, which is totally fine since you can customise your star map for any time of day, of course! Plus, this color looks very nice in a nursery, for example. Or if you have a grey cat.

This Mulberry color reminds us of a colourful sky at sunset. Doesn’t the Sun look stunning on this image?

Last the Chocolate color is a tribute to the old star charts that guided sailors over the past centuries.

Create your sky map in colours

Are the colors of the printed posters identical to those seen on screen?

Color rendering on screen and on prints depends on the calibration of each screen and printer.

We make every effort to ensure that the star map colors shown on images we publish on the GreaterSkies website are extremely close to the color of the star maps we print and ship. However, depending on the calibration of your own screen, you might see somewhat different hues and therefore perceive a difference between what you see on screen and the print you will receive. For exemple, if you like very high or low brillance on your screen, you might want to look at our website on different devices.

If you purchase a printable sky map, when you download your files, they will appear brighter than the photos on the website. This is normal, as the prints normally come out darker than the files. However, the exact printed colors will depend on the printer used, due to differences in printer color calibration. We delivery high resolution files, but cannot guarantee the print quality or colors in that case. But the digital file being in your possession, it can be edited to get the color closer to what you want on a specific printer with an image editing software. If color tone is very important to you, you might want to ask the print shop for a small proof before printing a large size poster. The proof has to be printed with the same printer to be valid though, printing on your home printer for example will likely give different results.

What is the true color of the night sky?

In creating our new star maps, our designer clearly took some liberties and chose colours that would look nice in most home decors. But what is the true color of the night sky? Black?

This is the colour that come to mind, yet the night sly is rarely black, or blue. When the night is dark, our human eyes perceive the sky  as black, because the light present is not sufficient to stimulate the color-sensitive cones in our eyes. However, there is light in the night sky, and many colors. When there is moonlight, and no interference from other light sources like city lights, the night sky appears blue, like it does in day time, due to the Raleigh effect.

As for the colour of the universe, it is not black either but a rather surprising color, of which we’ll talk in another post.

We hope you like our new colors! Make sure to let us know in comments what your favourite is, we’d love to hear from you.

Create your sky map in colours

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At GreaterSkies, many of the custom star maps we prepare are meant to become anniversary gifts. Since most people get married between May and October, it logically follows that most wedding anniversaries also happen during the spring to autumn months. We know it’s not always easy to find inspiration. So here comes a timely selection of love messages for her to personalise your wedding anniversary gift sky map.

Love messages for her under lucky stars

• This day, under these stars, we bound our hands and hearts together forever and began the adventure of a lifetime.
• On this day, under these stars, we became husband & wife. Best. Day. Ever.
• On the night we were wed, the stars aligned, the Moon was our witness, and all agreed we were a match made in Heaven.
• The stars that saw you change my life forever.

• You were then, and remain, the brightest star of them all.
• We were written in the stars, my love. All that separated us was time, the time it took to find our way to one another.
•  You are my shooting star, now and always.
• The star that makes love’s dream come true was shining on me the day I met you.
• This day, under these stars, you made me a proud and happy man. May we have many more sunrises and sunsets together.
• This day, under these stars, we started our journey together.
• You are made from the same stuff as stars.
• When the stars aligned and our souls met.
• You are the Sun in my days, the Moon in my nights, the beat in my heart.
• Under these stars I promised to handle your heart with care and treasure you always.
• When I followed my heart, it led me to you, and the stars smiled at us.
• Under these stars, all of my dreams came true.
• Don’t promise me the Moon and the stars, promise me to watch them with me, always.

Short love messages for her

Often, when personalising a gift, the space available is limited or even very limited. No way to write a novella or even fit an entire poem in there, you keep running into the “maximum character count” barrier!

While this can be frustrating, don’t fret. First, there is usually a good reason why the space allowed fo the message is limited: a very long text would spoil the harmony of the piece, or the font would be so small it would be unreadable, or the text simply wouldn’t fit.

Second, look up on the bright side: short messages can be as beautiful and touching as long prose. So, here is a selection of short love messages that won’t fall short of her expectations (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun).

• The stars over the first night of the rest of our lives.
• The day our stars crossed.
• Under these stars, I married my best friend.
• I love you to the stars and back, always and forever.
• You are my shooting star.
• The sky over our first night as Mr and Mrs …
• It all began under this sky.
• The sky over our heads when you said Yes!

Just a note here, GreaterSkies star maps have different text length depending on the design. While some of our newer designs will display more prominent messages (shorter text in larger font size), our Classic and Night Sky designs allow for a star map caption plus a message of up to 5 lines of text. So if you are feeling very inspired, no need to cut yourself short, choose one of these and write to your heart’s content!

Famous love quotes for her from literature

Many famous poets, novelists and playwrights have written about love, an eternal source of inspiration. And whereas the stories they tell are as diverse as their source of inspiration, famous writers have one thing in common: great style. So when looking for beautifully written, poetic, inspiring messages, turning to the great works of literature for inspiration is a sure bet.

To save you from reading hundred of pages — if you feel like it, by all means, indulge — we’ve prepared a selection of quotes by famous authors that are perfect messages for a wife and can be be used to personalise her anniversary gift.

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” ― William Shakespeare

“Yours is the light by which my spirit’s born: you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.” ― E.E. Cummings

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever.”― Alfred Tennyson

“For the two of us, home isn’t a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.”― Stephanie Perkins

“It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.”― Vladimir Nabokov

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Even
After
All this time
The Sun never says to the Earth,
“You owe me.”
Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky.”
― Hafiz

“I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you”
― E.E. Cummings

Write your own love message… on a beautiful gift

We hope you’ve found a personal message you like to personalise your star map wedding anniversary gift. Of course, feel free to mix and match, edit, and create your own message love message for her. For more inspiration, check other posts with romantic love messages below.

Oh, and if you need a support for your love message, other than a sheet of paper or a phone screen, something that would be a great gift, a custom sky map showing 8,000 stars, the Moon, the constellations, and even the Sun (if you married during daylight) over your Big Day could be just the thing!

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6 free printable Father’s Day cards

We’ve prepared 6 different cards for Dad, so you can choose the card you like best for the special Dad in your life.

At GreaterSkies, we love stars and constellations, so we couldn’t help include a starry sky in the cards, for the best Dads in the universe!

The First Father’s Day is a big thing, so we’ve created a special card for first time Dads.

The cards all have a starry sky background on both from and back, with 6 different designs and 4 Father’s Day Messages:

• Best Father in the Universe
• Best Daddy Ever
• Happy Father’s Day
• Happy First Father’s Day

How to download and print your Father’s Day card

1. Download your free printable cards

Download the card of your choice below in PDF format. Each card is included in a separate PDF. You can download just one or all of them if you have many Dads to celebrate.

Father’s Day Card Printable #6

Download your free printable Father’s Day card

Father’s Day Card Printable #5

Download your free printable Father’s Day card

Father’s Day Card Printable #4

Download your free printable Father’s Day card

Father’s Day Card Printable #3

Download your free printable Father’s Day card

Father’s Day Card Printable #2

Download your free printable Father’s Day card

Father’s Day Card Printable #1

Download your free printable Father’s Day card

2. Print your Father’s Day card

Each card is meant to be printed on a Letter or A4 sheet of paper, then folded in two. The print will be on the front and back, and you will have space to write on the inside of the card.

For best results, follow these simple steps:

• use a thick nice paper.
• Make sure your printer quality is set on “best”
• Print one file, single sided.
• Trim the margins as needed with good scissors or a rotary cutter and ruler for a sharp straight cut.
• Fold the card along the middle.

3. Write a personal message

Now write your favourite Dad a loving message and you are done! There is plenty of space inside the card to write a few  lines. In case you need a little help, visit the post below for inspiration.

21 Father’s Day messages for Dad 

Most Dads are happy with a card and a kiss. Now, if you ‘d like to add a special gift for Dad, a memory of the day he became a father will certainly move him, whether he is living his first Father’s Day this year or he is a seasoned Dad.

PS: If the happy Dad is wondering where to hang his new star map, the Night Sky star map print looks great in a modern nursery.

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Of course, Babies under one year of age don’t yet say aloud “Happy Fathers Day!” Nor do they make a nice drawing of Dad with his hair sticking up on his head, and 3 shakily written letters: D A D.  A first time Dad will have to wait a little more for all these sweet attentions.

But if babies do not choose themselves their Dad’s first Father’s Day gift — they don’t need to: a baby is a gift —  wife, parents siblings, friends or colleagues often look for a special gift for the first time Dad.

First Father’s Day gifts are different

If you were thinking about offering the new Dad a brand new LED headlight or a new pair of breathable bicycle gloves, think again. Sure he may love camping or cycling, but these are best kept as birthday gift ideas — or when he takes the kids camping, in a few years.

Classical men gifts such as beer openers, car vacuum cleaners, golf club sets, single-malt whisky and the the like, do not make the cut for first time Dads. Time might come when we turn out of ideas and resort to a set of cool beer can openers. Not yet.

For his first year, Dad deserves a gift more directly related to the fact that he is a new Dad, more than a beer or golf lover, even if he still enjoys his favourite hobbies. Indeed, first time Dads seem to often get gifts related to babies.

Unusual first time Dad gift ideas

So here comes our list of usual gift ideas for first time Dads.

• Humorous baby rompers with text showing how to open and close the fastenings.
• A t-shirt with a “New Day 2018” print.
• A DIY t-shirt with baby’s feet prints. To make this, you only need a plain colour cotton t-shirt, a large brush and water-based fabric paint (available in craft shops) and baby’s collaboration (that’s the hardest part):  set the t-shirt on a flat surface, dip the brush in the paint, paint baby’s foot plants, and then hold baby over the t-shirt and get her or him to “walk”, pressing the feet on the fabric slightly. You may want to practice on paper first.
• A beautiful sky map showing the stars and constellations over baby’s birthplace, when he became a new Dad.

GreaterSkies personalised star maps are perfect to celebrate a birth, or a first Father’s Day. They show the stars exactly as they were over that time and place. The new deep black Night Sky star map print is stunning, and will beautifully adorn a modern nursery.

Create a Night Star Map for Dad

Alternatively, the Classic star map print also looks beautiful, as below in the parents’ bedroom.

Create a Classic Star Map for Dad

Plus, starting on June 1st, both star map prints will be available in 2 US sizes and 2 metric sizes, so you can choose the size that better suits your space and budget.

Aside from choosing your own star map showing the sky over your chosen place, date and time, you can also type in a caption and a personal message that will be printed below the star chart. In you’d like some inspiration, check this post:

>>> 21 Father’s Day messages to personalise Dad’s star map gift

Happy First Father’s Day!

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The post First Father’s Day: special gift ideas for a first time Dad appeared first on GreaterSkies.

Create a Star Map for Dad

Personalised gifts are very cool, extremely thoughtful, often touching… and a tad bit more complicated than regular non-personalised gifts. Because, well, for a gift to be personal, someone has to put in the personal touch. And that someone might be as inspired as Shakespeare, or a bit short of ideas. So just in case you fall in the second category, here are some message ideas to help. Fell free to mix and match.

Father’s Day messages with stars

Here at GreaterSkies, we can’t help putting some stars in everything, including personal messages. So for star lovers out there, a selection of starry messages:

• Dad, I love you more than all the stars in the sky.
• I’m as lucky as can be, the best Dad in the universe belongs to me.
• Dad, I love you to the Moon and beyond.
• Dad, aren’t you the luckiest Dad in the universe to have me as a daughter/son?
• You are the brightest star in my sky, Daddy.
• Happy Father’s Day to a 5-star Dad!
• Despite the distance, we look up at the same starry sky and connect, Dad.

Father’s Day messages to show Dad love and appreciation

If you think Dad will already have enough stars in his sky map (nearly 8,000 though he will probably won’t count them), these more classical messages will show love and appreciation al the same:

• Some people don’t believe in heroes. They haven’t met you, Dad. Happy Father’s Day!
• No matter how tall I get, I will always look up to you Dad.
• Dad, thanks for always being there when I need you most.
• Daddy, thank you for first holding my hand, and then having my back.
• Thank you for being there everyday for me. I love you Dad.
• You give me everyday the greatest gift: you believe in me. Thank you Dad.
• When I am at my best, I am my father’s daughter/son. Love you Dad.

Funny Father’s Day messages for Dads with a sense of humour

If your Dad has a good sense of humour, these funny messages will make him smile:

• Dad, I looked up your symptoms on line. It turns out that you just have kids. Happy Father’s Day!
• You may not know everything, Dad, but you’ve fooled me for quite a while! Happy Father’s Day to superDad!
• Dad, you are the luckiest man in the world. I would love to have me as a daughter/son.
• Dad, I owe you so much. Thank you for not expecting me to pay you back. Happy Father’s Day!
• Happy Father’s Day to my Daddy who can fix it all except [insert there leaking faucet, broken favourite toy…]
• Dad, overall, I love you more than I want to strangle you.
• You may have loved me since the day I was born, Daddy, but I’ve loved you my whole life. I win.

Hope these messages help you find inspiration, and Happy Father’s Day!

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We released our first star map poster of this kind last month: when Professor Stephen Hawking passed away, we published a commemorative poster in his honour, showing the stars over his birthplace.

Now we are thrilled to announce a whole brand new collection, celebrating a mystery event!

New star map souvenirs

Here is a taste (almost a bite) of the new souvenir collection.

Oh, did we mention that all our souvenirs feature a map of the stars and constellations over a special event?

Mystery event: take a guess?

Which event is represented by this map? We’ll give you one major clue: this is a future event, happening this year, in 2018.

Now let’s apply some astronomy knowledge to get some more clues.

• See the Sun, over the ecliptic line that marks its path? Well, this tell us it’s a day time event. If it took place late in the evening or at night, the sun wouldn’t be there, and the stars and constellations would be in a very different position.
• Looking at the constellations, we find 2 of the most easily identifiable; the Big and the Little Dipper. The star at the tip of the Little Dipper is the North Star, which is only visible in the Northern Hemisphere. So now we know this sky will be seen from a place north of the equator.

Ok, that leaves quite a few places and dates and events still, so let’s dig a little further. The stars and constellations are set against a blue background, which is not the true colour of the sky. It was chosen by our in-house designer because that particular hue of blue bears a name, and that name is another important clue: royal blue.

If you know what event these stars will watch over, don’t hesitate to leave a comment with your guess below. A surprise may come to you if you guessed right!

A complete collection of souvenirs

At GreaterSkies, we love star map posters and we believe they fit in many places. But to the point of using one as a breakfast placemat? Not quite. Let’s take a better look:

Placemats or… tea towels? We let you guess. Oh, by the way, the white coffee mug on the breakfast photos wasn’t there by chance either. And the collection includes a few more items too.

A new home to house our star map souvenirs

New commemorative star maps, new products… we needed a place to house all this, since the GreaterSkies website will keep on hosting all our personalised star map items. So, our souvenirs and memorabilia has found a nice new home on a sister website.

Now open, check it out!

PS: Congrats to all off you who left comments and guessed right! You will receive a free Royal Wedding tea towel with the stars over the big day!

Discover here our Harry and Meghan star map souvenir collection!

PS: The Stephen Hawking commemorative poster is available there too! Soon to be joined by other star map souvenirs and gifts.

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Take advantage of our Easter Sale to get a custom star map and save. If you’d rather offer chocolate eggs this Sunday, plan ahead and get a special star map for an upcoming occasion: a close friend getting married soon? Your sister’s birthday? Your own wedding anniversary? GreaterSkies star maps can show both past and future dates, with down-to-the-minute precision.

Best of all, our customer star maps now come with even more convenient delivery options:

• printable files available for immediate download
• unframed prints with free shipping
• framed prints  with an elegant black frame and free shipping.

Easter sale – 20% off all star maps

Until Monday April 2nd

Shop now

The post Easter Sale 2018: 20% OFF Your Own Star Map appeared first on GreaterSkies.

At GreaterSkies, we like to give our customers options. From the onset, we offered our personalised star maps as printable files, available for immediate download in 10 different sizes. We remain the only maker of custom sky maps to offer printable files.

Later on, we added the convenience of receiving a high quality print at home. So our customers can choose how to print their star map, and how they’d like to frame it.

Framed star map prints, ready to display

Yet, we know that sometimes, what our customers want is the most straightforward option: a ready-to-hang poster, or a ready-to-offer gift. No printing, no framing required. Just order, sit back and relax.

So, what has taken us so long? Well, the difficulty of finding high quality frames that would look good with our star maps and in our customers’ homes. Really. It may sound trivial, it was not. We quickly found frames we could have used, sure, but the quality was not what we wanted to deliver. So we kept searching.

We are happy to introduce our new thin, elegant black frames. They feature a high-quality black aluminium frame, and an equally high-quality framing ‘glass’ made of extra-transparent, thin Styrene. This is preferable to glass, as it is thinner and more transparent, therefore the overall image clarity is better.

This contemporary elegant frame will easily find its place in a variety of decors, as above in this child room with a whimsical soft blue cacti wallpaper. Or against a white wall, as in the brightly lit dining area below.

More flexible options

Up to now, our star map prints always came with our signature downloadable JPG files in 10 different sizes. So in addition to enjoying your high quality print, you can also decide to print a card, or a smaller poster. The Letter or A4 formats, for example, are easy to print on any home printer.

While many of our customers enjoy the flexibility of having their own printable files, some say they would be just as happy with receiving just their printed poster. So from now on, we will offer 3 options:

• Unframed printed poster only
• Unframed printed poster + printable downloads in 10 sizes
• Framed printed  poster  + printable downloads in 10 sizes

The downloadable files remain available standalone for our customers who like to print their own star maps.

Let us know what you think of these new options. We always welcome your comments and suggestions.

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Earth Hour is more than a giant electric switch off sweeping across the planet, though. It is the moment to think about what we can do in our daily life to reduce our impact. People around the globe are participating and encouraging others to do so, in a myriad of ways. You can find inspirational ideas in this article from The Guardian, in which readers share their plans for Earth Hour.

Light pollution prevents up from seeing the stars

We at GreaterSkies love our planet and everything that lives upon it, as much as we love stargazing. Sadly, for most of us nowadays, a truly beautiful starry sky is a rare sight, even on clear nights free of clouds. Air pollution is a big culprit, for sure, combined at times with high humidity.

Light pollution, the inappropriate or excessive use of artificial light, is the other major problem. It can have serious environmental consequences for humans, wildlife, and our climate. Light pollution is becoming so prevalent that dark sanctuaries are now being created, places where we can still see the awe-inspiring starry sky in all its splendour. These dark sanctuaries are often located in remote areas.

During Earth Hour, switch off and stargaze

During Earth Hour, we stand a chance to see, for a little while, the stars above our heads without leaving home, if we switch off the lights and convince our neighbours to do the same.

To help you locate the constellations and major stars as you look up at the celestial vault, we have generated two star charts, for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Depending on your location, use one or the other.

Free maps of the night sky over New York and Sydney

This first map shows the sky over New York, USA.

The star chart below shows the sky over Sydney, Australia, at the time Earth Hour stars.

Of course if you are not in one of these two places, the sky above your head will be somewhat different, but you can still use the map to stargaze and identify stars and constellations.

Get your own precise star map from your location

If you’d like a very precise star map over your own location, you can get a high resolution printable instant download here.

Remember, tomorrow March 24th, at 20:30 your time, switch off the light and look up. Enjoy the view!

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