I’m pretty sure none of us wnat to hear this, but it’s almost that time! Give me a couple of weeks and I will start taking pictures and designing our holiday/Christmas cards. It takes me awhile to get it perfect every time! I always make our own and they have gotten a little better each year. I usually use digital scrapbooking supplies and my handy dandy paintshop pro.
Here’s a few past ones –
2009
2008
I can’t find 2007 – egads! I did find our Valentine’s Day cards from last year too –
I try to make all of the cards we send out, no matter the holiday. It adds a touch to our personalized holiday cards that is unique to my family and honestly, I think my family has come to expect something fun and unique from me when it comes to Christmas cards. I always include a current picture of the kids. I also usually have a special photo shoot for it. I want the picture to be fun, like the one in our card for last Christmas. After the pictures are taken, I spend a long time pouring through the pictures and editing them to make them the best I can. Last year’s was hard. Christiano wasn’t cooperating in the photo shoot. He actually was crying. The best picture of the other 3 was the one I used, then I took Christiano’s face from another photo and edited the other picture to use that face that looks like he’s almost smiling. I usually use one of my own digital scrapbooking kits to design the card, but I have used other people’s before. (The cards above are a mix of my own and others. Last year’s Christmas card was made using this kit here.) Using my own products just feels good to me.
I tend to save pictures – which is basically what our holiday card is. After the season is over, I hate to admit it, but the Christmas cards hit the craft pile or the recycling bin. I have so much clutter as it is with all of the stuff we need, extra papers and cards…I just don’t have room for it. If anyone else in my family is the same way I am, hopefully our holiday card doesn’t get tossed out with the trash with my kids’ smiling faces staring at the recipient. 
If you don’t have a program or aren’t handy with it, there is a site called Purple Trail that can help you with your holiday card design. Check them out! They are having a blogger contest right now where you can win a gift code to their site.
Here’s one that I quickly designed over there. If I were to print out this one for our cards, I would have spent a little more time lining up the picture with the border. I didn’t see an auto crop option so it would fit in the space allowed for the picture, but it might be there if you play with their designer a bit.
Shall we condense my wordiness into my top 5 tips for making holiday cards?
1) Change up your direction – When you’re taking a picture, don’t just take it straight on. Create a unique perspective. If you look at the one from last year (on top), my kids were laying on my bed in a circle, head to head. I stood on my bed over them and snap snap snapped. You could also lay all your kids in a row on the ground on their tummies. Get down there across from them on your own tummy, snap your pictures from that angle. Straight on is what most people do. Make your direction unique!
2) Take TONS of pictures. When you’re dealing with little kids, especially multiple little kids, it is hard to get everyone looking in the same direction at once, not to have someone blinking, not to have someone crying. If by chance you are lucky and get the perfect shot, skip the next step.
3) Edit your pictures. Pop the color out, change it to sepia, turn it black and white, use selective coloring. (That is so much fun when you have a baby holding a Christmas ornament. I have a tutorial on selective coloring here. It’s for PSP, but if you can modify it to work with your program. Here’s an example of selective coloring –
That’s one I did of Alyce when she was a baby. I left her eyes blue and turned the rest to black or white.
You can also change huge things in pictures, like I said, Christiano was crying in the one I used above, I took his face out of another picture and added it to the one I chose. I do this all the time. I snap tons of pictures and then can take one face and switch it with another when they are looking in the wrong direction.
Note – I have quite a few scripts in my store that work with Paintshop Pro 8 and up. The instructions are included, super easy though, install it, push a button, and it runs it self. If you don’t have Paintshop Pro, you can still browse through them to get ideas on what to do with your own pictures or there are a lot of people who make photo actions for photo shop.
Annie Manning (no relation to me – ) is one off the top of my head who makes absolutely gorgeous photo shop actions.
You can also try using photo masks and edging or fun frames to your pictures. Add a grungy overlay and change up your blend mode and opacity to give your photo a really cool unique look.
4) You’ve now spent all the time working on the perfect picture, now have fun with the actual design. There are years I feel more minimalistic and other times I want a lot going on in the design. It really depends on the photo I am using. I usually tend to use more white space and then cluster a lot of elements into one area. My personal preference, but you can make something fun that shows off your individuality. Don’t just use something because it’s there. Really make it reflect who your family is.
5) My biggest tip is to print these out as 4X6’s. You can save a ton of money. The normal long rectangular holiday card can cost over $1 each. Design it as a 4X6 instead. $100 vs $10? Huge savings!
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I am participating in a giveaway for PurpleTrail.com and this post makes me eligible for a PurpleTrail gift code.
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I always love your pictures. You are a talented woman!