Category: Holidays & Bdays

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Holidays & Bdays Photo Gear Photography

5 Places to Find Amazing Christmas Cards & Templates

5 Places to Find Amazing Christmas Cards & Templates

Before I became a photographer I didn’t care much for sending out Christmas cards. There were a few years we made our own, but most years we didn’t even send one out. In the photography world, however, most photographers send out cards to all their clients as a way to say “thank you”, “keep in touch” and even as a reminder to come back in the next year for updated portraits. It’s a marketing expense. Justifiably so.

I got hooked. I seriously LOVE them now. I think they are so fun. I love how the Christmas card world has evolved, and now you have boutique cards, cut out cards, tri-fold cards and all other sorts of creative shapes and sizes. It’s fabulous. So many choices!! BUT, as a regular ol’ person (no access to a fancy shmancy photo lab) where do you get the cool cards? Never fear. I am here to help.

I figure there’s 2 types of people looking for Cards – those with some Photoshop skills, and those without. If you have a copy of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements and know your way around layers and layer masks, it opens up a whole new world of Christmas card making. If not, no worries. I’ve got you covered too.

Here are 5 places I recommend shopping for Christmas cards, or Christmas card templates:

1. Etsy. No joke. Its a mecca of Christmas card templates in all shapes and sizes. I just did a search for Christmas card templates and came back with 6, 504 items. Most templates are between $4-$12 if you are buying just one. There are also vendors for maybe $15 that you can send photos to, they’ll insert into one of their templates and send you back the file. Not a bad deal. Here’s two of my favorite vendors: one, two.

2. Pro Digital Photos: No templates, just cards. Super cute ones though. They are a nifty little boutique photo lab located in Pleasant Grove Utah. I use them for a lot of my press-printed marketing material and also my Christmas cards last year. They have a lot of the fun die-cut cards and boast over 350 different options.

3. Bird Design Shop: Templates. I love hers. I couldn’t find one that fit our photos for this year, but I desperately tried. I love that she sells collections (if you are a photographer wanting to offer different designs for your clients to choose from), but also sells them singly as well. She also has some really cute Facebook Timeline templates as well.

4. Tiny Prints: They have a gazillion designs, but their search options make their selection less intimidating. You can pre-ship your envelopes (get a jump on labeling them) or even have Tiny Prints mail them out for you! Phew. A lot less work that way.

5. Costco: The professional photographer in me had to swallow a bitter pill to put this on the list, but they have really stepped up their game. In addition to their usual, weird-sized, photo cards (which I do NOT love), they are now offering 5×7 premium double-sided Premium Stationary Greeting Cards. They actually look really nice.  I’m impressed.

Spend a few minutes looking through your options, and send a great looking Christmas Card this year. Don’t forget to send me one too! 🙂

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Holidays & Bdays Mommy Diaries

Thanksgiving Holiday Wrap Up

I’ve always had mixed feelings about Thanksgiving. Growing up, for me, it was a holiday to get together with all of my extended family, play games all day, eat around 3pm, play more games and then eat dessert when we finally thought we could fit it in before heading home late that night. Sam, on the other hand, grew up doing work/service projects in the morning, and eating during the late afternoon after everyone showered. The last 10 years have been a mix of both – sometimes with my family, sometimes with his, always trying to find a holiday routine that fulfilled the needs of our young family.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a parent, its that your family needs will change. Constantly. Young kids don’t have the attention span to play games all day (Mom! I’m bored!), nor do they have the skills to engage in an all day work project. Modeling our holiday solely after either family’s traditions has usually ended in frustration. This year, however,  I felt we finally found a good balance for us.

We spent the morning in our pajamas, lazily playing Plants vs. Zombies on the tablet. No kidding. It was fantastic. We showered, got dressed, had a normal lunch and then headed over to our friend’s house in the early afternoon armed with art supplies so the kids could work on their crafts while I helped Cassie with the food. It was great! I helped the kids paint, we made Indian headbands and vests (found via Pinterest, of course), we listened to music, chopped vegetables and talked and laughed in the kitchen.Thanksgiving Wrap Up 01A lot of our success with the kids came down to being prepared. With no cousins to run around and play with, my kids really want to play with us. I’m totally okay with that, it just means that I usually have to bring something to do, and it also means that holidays don’t generally feel like a day off. In fact, they are probably more work. And that’s okay because I want our holidays to be memorable.

Maybe one day we’ll cook our own Thanksgiving feast in our Airstream, but this year we were completely content to be on vegetable chopping, table setting,  and dish washing duty. Thanks again to our amazing friends who helped us create a memorable first Thanksgiving on the road!

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Holidays & Bdays Most Popular Posts Photo Gear Photography

22 Gifts for the Photographer in Your Life

Everybody knows someone that is a photographer, and with Thanksgiving wrapped up and Christmas approaching I thought I’d help you out with your shopping list. Here are 22 great gifts for the photographer in your life (in no particular order).

1. Black Rapid Strap: I love mine. The cross body carrying method is 10x more comfortable than a strap around your neck. They have both a women’s and a men’s version (although I just have the men’s. Women’s wasn’t yet created when I acquired mine).

2. Joby Gorillapod: Flexible, lightweight, adjustable, and easy to carry with you on the go. Get super creative and wrap around a pole or a tree for some great stable photography.

3. Add the Joby Ballhead X to your Gorillapod and you are golden. Much easier to move the camera around and fine tune positioning.

4. Digital Timer Remote for your SLR: Allows you to set your shutter on a timer. Also does intervals – I totally use this with my kids when I actually want to be in the photo. Put your camera on a tripod, set the intervals for every 10 seconds and then go about your activity (obviously you have to be fairly stationary). Worked great for coloring Easter Eggs one year.

5. Think Tank Card Wallet: For those wedding photographers that have a ton of memory cards. I love that it has a strap for you to attach to your clothing. Also has a business card slot for easy identification.

6. Eneloop AA Batteries: I’ve lost track of how many of these I actually own. Every photographer needs more rechargeable batteries. Trust me. These are the best.

7. The Capture Pro: For full reasons why should get this, read my blog post here. Its fabulous.

8. The Daisy Grip: I don’t own one (yet) but my child photographer friends swear by them.

9. The Expo Disc: Get perfect white balance in tricky situations. Fabulous for wedding photographers when the lighting can be all over the place at receptions.

10. The F-Stop Watch: Totally on my list.

11. Camera Cookie Cutters: Who doesn’t love sugar cookies?

12. Photo-opoly: Personalized game of Monopoly. I’ve never tried it, but it has great reviews on Amazon! Fun, easy to put together.

13. Going Pro: Scott Bourne & Skip Cohen are two of the greats in the photography world. Fantastic book about taking the leap from amateur to pro photographer. Have it, read it, loved it.

14. Understanding Exposure: For experience or beginning photographers. Understanding your camera, f-stops, and dozens of other topics to get your camera of Auto and have more control over your photos.

15. Camera Charm Necklace: Sparkly.

16. Keep Calm and Snap On Poster: Decorates one of the walls in my office. Kind of an odd size, so I had it matted and framed at Michael’s.

17. The PhotoJojo lens set: ooooh. These are fun! They’ve even added a polarizer since I bought mine. Might be time for a new set.

18. The Slingshot: stabilizing grip for your phone and it also folds out into a tripod! Super useful for video.

19. Canon Camera Lens Mug: My dad bought me one of these for my birthday. I totally love it.

20. Smartphone Attachable Lens – Sony Qx10: One of the coolest innovations for camera phones yet. 10x optical zoom, f/1.8, the lens carries everything it needs inside it and you control it with your phone. You can also find it here.

21. Holga Camera: For those of us that have always shot digital, this is a fun little experiment in film. Don’t forget to also buy film.

22. Camera Shaped USB Drive: Why not?

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Holidays & Bdays Most Popular Posts

Gratitude for a Simpler Life

Our Airstream Grateful TreeOur Thanksgiving tradition is to create a “Thankful Tree”. Usually this involves a cardboard tree cutout, lots of tape, and the kitchen wall in our home in Lehi. Even though we are not in a normal house this year, we really wanted to keep up this tradition and provide some continuity for our family. So our Airstream became our new tree. We spent a Monday evening together tracing, cutting out, and writing things we are grateful for on our leaves before scattering them all across the walls and ceiling of our little home. I love what my kids came up with for their leaves. Items such as “stove”, “pumpkin muffins”, “seasons”, “world” with their atrocious spelling have graced our home for the last month and reminded us of all the little (and big) things we have to be thankful for.

This year we have much to be thankful for. Our life has taken an interesting (to put it mildly) turn this year and I am in awe every single day of how much our family is blessed and watched over.

We recently stayed at a beautiful state park just outside of Savannah Georgia. This particular campground had come at the recommendation of at least 3 fellow Airstream families so we knew it had to be good. When we first pulled up to the  campground and drove through looking for “the perfect spot” we were also secretly checking for other Airstreams. This time we found not one, but two. When you are traveling full time in such an iconic and recognizable trailer, finding other Airstreams in the same campground almost guarantees you insta-friends. This time was no exception.Skidaway Island State Park-2We played. We rode bikes. We built secret forts among the palm trees and Spanish Moss. We didn’t work enough because we were too busy swapping stories at the playground. We love to hear the background and details behind other traveling families. Everyone has their reasons and goals but almost always you can find similarities.Skidaway Island State Park-5On this holiday of Thanksgiving, we have much to be grateful for. We love our family, our faith, and our friends. We also feel very grateful for this opportunity to restructure and re-prioritize our activities and circumstances in pursuit of a simpler life.

We are grateful to our God, our Father in Heaven, and his son Jesus Christ. We know they love and understand us. They love and understand everybody, but we know they understand us and love us personally. We believe that they have guided our lives, provided opportunities, and provided inspiration for us to embark on this journey. I hope we can do good for our family and the world with what we have been given.

We are grateful for friends and family, for encouraging words, emotional support, and allowing us to visit their lives as we travel.

We are grateful for those who have given us confidence that this is not only possible, but wonderful. Oddly enough, we found many of these wonderful people on Instagram, sharing the ups and downs of their family travel. Malimish, Tinfoil House, Silvertrails, WhereIsKyleNow, Worksology, The Gardella Family. I’m sure there are many more and we can’t wait to meet them as we continue our journey.

We are blessed to be spending the weekend with good friends, eating amazing food, and enjoying lots of togetherness  in Tampa, FL.

So, here’s to Thanksgiving. A day set aside to remind ourselves of everything we have, and of everything we have to hope for in the future. A day to express our gratitude, share our love, and eat yummy stuff.

 

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Holidays & Bdays Maryland Washington DC

Halloween at National Harbor “Chillin with My Peeps”

The Event

I normally am obsessed with Halloween. Seriously. I love everything about it. Not the creepy part, but the fun, costume parade, trick-or-treat, decorate, dress up part as evidenced by the last 3 years of Halloween documented on my blog here, here, and here (Wow, check out how LITTLE my kids were in 2010).

This year has been totally different. I told the kids they could be whatever we could find costumes for in the attic (in a house that isn’t ours) or that we could easily make or borrow. I have 2 Halloween decorations on my front porch, and really, I just haven’t been excited. I think its the stress. Of being far away from home, our normal traditions, our family and friends. We are homeschooling and it hit me Monday that meant  any “class” Halloween party would be all me. Add to that Sam leaving tomorrow for a business conference for 4 days, and then the fact that we are leaving Virginia for good in less than 2 weeks. I’m just….overwhelmed. Unfortunately, Halloween was the first to feel my lack of motivation to do anything extraordinary.

Sounds depressing, right? But then somehow we managed to get out the door in the afternoon and follow through on our plans. It made all the difference. Way back in September we attended a few children’s events at National Harbor in Maryland. They were great little activities and the coordinator tipped me off about a Halloween event they were planning called “Chillin’ with my Peeps” co-sponsored by the National Harbor Carousel and the Peeps Store. It was awesome. We paid $3 per kid for unlimited carousel rides, received the ultimate collection of treats at the Peeps store and got to walk around in the perfectly temperate, October, East Coast evening trick-or-treating the other businesses located at National Harbor. Total win. As we were treating, we even decided that one of the restaurants smelled SO good that we absolutely had to go back for dinner. So we did.

I’ll be honest, we almost didn’t go. Its always getting out the door that is difficult, but once you do things tend to be magical and tonight was no exception. Our kids officially proclaimed this as the “best Halloween ever”.

The Costumes

Andrew got to choose between The Hulk and Batman. I secretly am glad Batman won especially after Andrew’s  previous year of being Spiderman. There’s just something classical about being a super hero. He got pretty excited about swinging his cape around for me too. Totally my inner photographer’s dream.

(Can I just say that when, and if, we finally settle down I want property with TREES? Lots of them. Lots of un-landscaped trees and bushes. This is seriously our side yard here in Virginia – probably 5 feet from the driveway. I love it. The light is beautiful, the trees are turning and I had to just walk outside to get the perfect backdrop. I’m hooked.)

After an activity with other girls from our church where they raced to wrap each other in toilet paper, Rachel decided she wanted to be a mummy. I didn’t argue, figuring it would be easy enough. She’s such a good sport. I started wrapping her up and I saw her eyes go wide as she quickly rethought her decision. Too late, kid. Too late. Of course, Mummies all wear purple tennis shoes. Didn’t you know that? 🙂

If you ever decide to do this – buy more than 3 yards of fabric. We went through it pretty quick and I felt we could have used at least double that! Super easy though – white long sleeved shirt, white leggings underneath and wrap away with torn fabric strips! We used safety pins tonight (as opposed to the church party last night where she came unraveled pretty quickly) and Rachel even told me they made her costume look MORE authentic. Only she didn’t use the word “authentic”. I’m not THAT good of a homeschooling mom.

I’m pretty sure Cara could be anything she wanted and she would still looking freaking adorable. I love this girl. Pumpkin costume was WAY to small (not my attic, remember?) but I found some glow-in-the-dark pumpkin pajamas at Target that we put underneath and it turned out fabulous! She was in heaven.

And that’s that. Total win on surviving a major holiday away from family and friends. Any guesses on where we will be next year?