My dear friend Joey had these beautiful photos taken of her son and she wanted to send them to family and friends for Christmas, so I whipped up a few holiday card concepts and this one was the winner.
We made sure to include an elephant to pay tribute to their oldest son who passed away shortly after he was born. Love you, Jack!!
I love the subtle, gold sparkle print and the knitted sweater background. The beautiful photos were taken by Jennifer Lyn Holmes.
I look forward to creating our holiday card every year. I do a lot of design work for clients throughout the year, but I don't do much for my little family. We don't have elaborate birthday parties for our boys, so our annual holiday card is the one thing I get to work on that's entirely personal.
A few years ago, a friend introduced me to a local photography company called FotoFly. They do unique Santa photos every year where one of the parents wears the Santa suit, hopefully ensuring that the kids are calm and happy for photos. The results produce some really beautiful and unique holiday photos.
My boys and Santa have been the feature image on all of our holiday cards since the very first card I created in 2013. You can see other years here: 2014, 2015, and 2016.
Here is the card I created for 2017:
I used the fun knitted sweater texture that I created last year. My oldest requested a dark green background. And since our cards hardly ever include my husband and me, I added a little snippet at the bottom, "Bill & Alex send their love too."
I had my cards printed with OvernightPrints for the first time this year. I've always used VistaPrint, but this year, both companies' pricing was comparable and a close friend of mine raved about the quality of her business cards that were printed with OvernightPrints. So I gave them a go. They didn't charge me extra to print my cards two-sided, which I love, so above is what I put on the back. Plus, only $1 to add rounded corners. Score!
When I shared my photos on my Instagram account, I was notified shortly after Christmas that I won their Art & Design contest! Woot!
Part of my prize was being featured on their blog. Click on the image below to read the blog post:
Thank you so much OvernightPrints for not only beautifully printed holiday cards, but for the feature! Pretty sure you've created a very loyal customer.
We're a week away from Thanksgiving and I have holiday cards on my mind already! Below are a handful of the customizable cards available in my Etsy shop or available as custom orders. I love trying out different textures and backgrounds. Some of my favorites end up surprising me, like that fun knitted sweater texture!
I will be accepting orders for custom holiday cards through Friday, December 15th. After that my family will be traveling to spend our Winter Break in California. I can set up ANY of the files I create to be printed anywhere; whether you plan to print with a local print shop, VistaPrint, OvernightPrints, or even print on your home printer. Just let me know so I can set up the files correctly. If you'd like a design on the back of your holiday card, let me know. If you mention this blog post, I'll create a design for the back at NO extra charge!
Click on any of these photos to link to the listing on Etsy if it's available there.
This was our holiday card a couple of years ago, and I still swoon a little bit over my boys so little and so cute in their matching PJs. We are doing Santa photos like this again (that's me in the Santa suit!), and again my boys want to wear matching PJs. This card is available in your choice of 4 chalkboard background colors. We can use which ever coordinates best with your family photo.
This is such a fun design with the polaroid photos on top of a faux wood background. Choose a layout with 4, 5, or 6 photos and customize the caption at the bottom of each one, or you can leave them blank. Also choose between a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays greeting.
This is the holiday card we mailed to our friends and family last year. The selfie pose was my oldest son's idea and that's me in the Santa suit! I LOVE how it turned out. Choose from four different colors for the faux knitted background.
I still love a faux chalkboard background, and a smiling face just makes it even better. Choose between four different color schemes.
This is my most popular design and I still love it. I will update the listing to show a couple of color options for the background and a couple of script font options too.
I love this knitted sweater background! Showcase a handful of family photos and choose from 3 background colors.
This card features faux watercolor holly leaves and pine needles on background that has a faint wood grain. Showcases one family photo or I can do a collage of photos that fill the same space.
This was such a fun design that I did for my sister and brother-in-law. The comic book theme works with 6 photos and all of the text is customizable. This one is only available as a custom order. Shoot me an email to talk about placing an order.
I love a watercolor background! This custom card can be done as a collage with four photos like pictured, or with just one square image of your family. Choose from four different background colors too.
If you love any one of the designs in my Etsy shop, but you'd like to make changes to the layout, colors, fonts, or create a completely custom holiday card for your family, please shoot me an email and we can talk pricing.
Cheers!
We were back at FotoFly this past fall to take some fun photos with Santa. I donned the Santa suit this year as we brainstormed with our photographer some new poses that would work for our two boys. My oldest asked he we could take a selfie with Santa and it ended up being the best photo.
For some reason, we were busier than usual this year and failed to get matching PJs figured out in time for the photo shoot. I asked my boys what they wanted to wear and Hawaiian shirts won. I only wish I had thought to throw a "hang loose" sign with my right hand when we shot this.
The back was kept simple with my boys showing off their goofball selves.
This holiday card design is available in my Etsy shop in the fall where I use your family photos. You can see the listing here. Merry Christmas!