Christmas Card Design
I would have hoped this post would have occurred much earlier in the season but as timing would have it my Christmas cards are just arriving this week in the snail mail. In November I blogged about the outfits I was pulling together for our family pictures here. My family knows having an annual picture is really important to me and I wish coordinating the outfits was really the hardest part. With a daughter in the “real” world work force, a son off at college playing a D1 sport and a husband who has a 100 mile commute each day things can get a little crazy. Add in the fact that during any holiday my Bigs also need to spend time with their dads side of the family and we are very limited.
The one decision which comes super easy is choosing my photographer. I am somewhat decent behind the lens and last year I took our pictures using a remote and a tripod but this year I turned to my favorite, the amazing Sarah Burns, of Butterfly Chaser Photography. In years past we have taken our pictures in October on a school holiday falling on a Monday which always worked well. This year Riley’s fall break fell the same weekend which would have been perfect but baseball did not take a fall break. We were literally left with one day that would work which ended up being the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Booked..done…easy….right?
We took our new puppy, Dutch, along and headed to meet Sarah at Research Park on the A&M campus. Texas doesn’t have much color in the fall but somehow we timed this shoot on the absolutely most perfect day. The weather was ideal, the wind was low and the leaves were amazing! Here are the individual shots used for the back of our card.
I first designed a card using Minted and was somewhat satisfied but I could not get the layout exactly as I wanted. I turned to my friend Nichole of Quick Design Company to help me out and as usual she nailed it.
Sarah spent lots of time photographing my kids and me with my kids and even took a few pictures of our group with my mom who happened to have joined us. I cannot wait to see all our pictures in the new year. As life has it, Keith ended up with a tractor stuck in the mud and a blowout all in one day and did not make it for the shoot. We finished up and all stood posed by my very patient photographer waiting for him to arrive to snap one family picture! He literally drove up, threw on the sweater I brought for him over his other clothes and Sarah was able to snap this beautiful shot with the very, very last light of the day. Given all that you would look at Keith and think this is why he is not smiling…..but for real…this is his real smile! Or his real family picture smile anyway evidenced by all of the Christmas pics we’ve ever taken…you can check those out here if you are interested.
The final result was a family picture and a card I love which will quickly compete as one of my all time favorites.
I absolutely love having a picture to look at each year that shows our changing family. It reminds me of all the crazy we have had through the years…laughter, tears, all of it. I’m so thankful for this family who will grumble a little but still pull together for their mom to give me the gift I love the most!
Merry Christmas to all!