I loved this idea for a year in review picture collage, and it’s much easier than cropping tons of photos and trying to make a coherent design.  The idea is from Brenda Carpenter, who is a designer for The Scrap-Room, a scrapbooking kit club, and she also posts on Two Peas in a Bucket.  She used Picasa to make the collage (see Busy Mom’s post on Picasa, which is free downloadable software from Google), printed it out in an 8 x 10 size, and then made a simple layout with colored cardstock.    
When I made my collage, I didn’t want to use up all my color ink, so I uploaded it to Shutterfly and ordered it from them.  I copied her layout, colors and all, and put it into a 12 x 12 size frame (available at craft stores), and hung it up so we can look at it all the time.  It’s a great way to be able to look at all of your important pictures of the year.  I plan to do one every year, and put the previous year’s layout in an album.  It’s also a great gift for grandparents.