Posts from the ‘Personal’ Category

Tips: Holiday Photo Cards

It is already that time again — time for holiday cards!  One of my favorite things about the holidays is making our annual Pawliday Card!  I greatly enjoy making images tangible.  That is why I print my images; make photo books; and get images framed and on our walls!  It brings so much joy and makes wonderful family heirlooms and keepsakes!

Below I share some tips on making a photo holiday card.

1. Aesthetic: Decide on your aesthetic or theme of your holiday card.  Before I even select images for our holiday card and look at possible card designs, I decide on an aesthetic or theme that I would like to convey, and keep this theme in mind when selecting images and the final card design.  My aesthetic is generally simple and clean, highlighting the images.

2. Images: Select the images that you would like to include on your holiday card.  Next, I begin with the images I want to include on the front and back of the holiday card.  I go through my images from the year and select the images that I would like to include on the holiday card.    It is important to make sure these images are of high quality in order best showcase your photographs on the card.  Also, it is important to keep in mind the best crop to present each image and how the images collectively look together.

3. Design: Select a couple of design options that works well with your overall aesthetic and images you have selected.  I typically look at card designs at Artifact Uprising, Minted, and Pinhole Press.  (This year, we went with Artifact Uprising for our Pawliday card).  I spend time looking at these sites and gathering the possible designs that will work well with my images and aesthetic.  After narrowing down the card design options, I show the possible designs to Doug and get his input and then together we settle on two to three possible design options.  I like to have heavy matte card stock for my holiday card.  Thus, I use companies that offer this option.

4. Mock-Up: Create mock-ups of the possible design options.  After selecting the designs, I put together mock-ups whereby I make the final selection of the images and this provides a good way to visually see how the card would look.  Then, I show the mock-ups to Doug and we settle on a design.  By the end of the mock-up process, it is usually pretty evident which images, text, and design will collectively work the best together.

5. Final Design Selection: After letting some time pass, a week or two, I go back to my final design option and make sure I am happy with it.

6. Proofing: Once the images and final design is selected, I then show the final holiday card to Doug for final revisions and proofing of text, etc.

7. Stamp: We also use a custom photo stamp on the envelopes of our holiday card.  This typically includes an image appearing on our holiday card.

8. Seal: We also use a custom photo seal on our holiday cards.  This usually matches the custom stamp.

9. Return Address Label: We use a simple return address label for our holiday cards.

10. Timing: It usually takes me about a month to complete the above process.  It strive to get my orders in by the beginning of November to offer ample time to address and send out our Pawliday card, and address any printing issues, if need be!

I hope that these tips help you in creating a photo holiday card that you love!

Shown below is our Pawliday card from last year.

Happy Holiday Photo Card Making!

Happy Birthday, Nick!

Over the weekend, it was Nick’s birthday and he turned nine, we think!  Nick, as most of you might know who have been reading the blog, is my parents’ rescue papillon mix dog!  My parents adopted Nick in August of 2011.  In our family, we celebrate our furry family members’ birthdays (we most recently celebrated Victory’s birthday in October!)  This year, we gave Nick an LLBean dog bone fleece pillow with his name embroidered in red block lettering!  Nick loves red — his collar, leash, and Hound About are all red!  We are all for spoiling our furry family members!

Happy Birthday, Nick!

P.S.  Here is a fun video of Nick!

Victory: Becoming a ‘Big Cousin’

We have fun and exciting news to share — Victory is going to be a ‘big cousin!’  My sister, Kassie, and her husband are expecting their first bundle of joy this spring!  We are very happy and excited!  Doug and I are thrilled to soon meet the newest and littlest addition to our family!  As you can see below, Victory is delighted with this exciting news!  Victory was even willing to participate and help me capture this wonderful news visually!  Congratulations again!  We are so very happy for you!

Custom Bib: Zazzle  |  Pacifier: Target  |  Balloons: Target  |  Banner and Garland: Target

I have been quite sick all week with trips to the doctor and this little fur girl has kept me company in bed — she is such a loyal and faithful friend.  Consequently, we had to cancel our trip to North Carolina this weekend, and we hope to reschedule again soon.  Happy Friday!

Around Here: October

Well, it is officially fall, our favorite time of the year!  We are enjoying the cooler temperatures and foliage.  Below are some items that have occurred around here in October, our favorite month of the year!  We can hardly believe this month of October is coming to an end.  It is always a fun and fully packed month each year!

-continuing to work steadily on my long-term photography project; I am almost done drafting the draft the copy for my project; and I continue to work on the remaining final images to finish to complete the project, which I plan to finish next year.

-finished all of the photo shoots for my long-term photography project, over 150 photo shoots over the past three years.

-continue to prepare filings with the U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress.

-finished culling and editing our images from our vacation!

-finished reading this book — an excellent read, and I will share more about this great book!  I am still making my way through the stack of books on my nightstand.

-we celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary!

-we celebrated Victory’s birthday!

-we visited the pumpkin patch, an annual tradition, to pick out our pumpkins!  (A few images from our trip to the pumpkin patch are shown below.)

-we are ready to celebrate Halloween — Victory looks so adorable in her costume! Doug has figured out our pumpkin theme, as he carves our pumpkin each Halloween, which takes him nearly a day to carve with the help of a Dremel — that is what you call dedication!  Doug is going to attempt to carve two pumpkins this year, time permitting.  I am sure Victory will supervise!

-my sister came to visit us.

-burning fall-scented candles all over the house!

-enjoying opening the windows and waking up to the crisp fall air in the mornings.

-enjoying cooler evenings and walks together outside, breathing in the crisper air, a welcome change!

-enjoying time together on the deck, while the weather is still nice.

-enjoying date nights with Doug!

-enjoying my yoga class, and recently learned about Doga — I would love to take a Doga class!

-started the second season of The Affair.

-started the second season of Fargo.

-started the first season of Orphan Black.

-giving our fur girl her monthly bath — Victory is getting better about bath time, but it still takes both Doug and I to bathe Victory!  Victory’s fur feels so smooth and silky after her bath and brush out!

-just about finished our annual Pawliday card!

-almost done framing my images for the house — my new deadline is Christmas to finish, as this project it taking quite awhile to complete.

-continuing to make more progress on our ever-growing to do list!

Happy Wednesday!

Sisters: Wedding Day

With both of our wedding anniversaries this month, it made me think about my wedding day and my sister’s wedding day and the importance of sisterhood.  I read a quote by an unknown author that summarizes sisterhood perfectly, and I mentioned this quote in my toast at my sister’s wedding.  “A sister is a gift to a heart.  A friend to the spirit.  A golden thread to the meaning of life.”  I am grateful to have my sister, Kassie, a thoughtful and genuine person, and one of the few people I have known my entire life and shares each other’s past.  Below we are pictured together on each of our wedding days — exactly six years and one week apart along with a childhood photo, similar pose, circa 1980s!

My sister and brother-in-law are visiting us from Michigan for a long weekend!

Happy Friday!  Have a great weekend!

Seven Years In

Not only did we celebrate Victory’s Birthday this weekend, we also celebrated our seven-year wedding anniversary!  It is difficult to believe seven years ago around this time we were getting married!  Additionally, in September, while we were in Quebec on vacation, we celebrated eleven years together since our first date!

To celebrate our wedding anniversary, and with the beautiful weather over the weekend, we went to Delaware along with our fur girl!  The weather on our anniversary reminded us of the day we got married — it was beautiful with the sun shinning and warm temperatures.  While in Delaware, we went to the pumpkin patch, an annual tradition.  Doug and Victory picked out two large pumpkins to carve on Halloween!  We only know of one pumpkin patch where Victory can come along, and it happens to be in Delaware.  We also celebrated with dinner at one of our favorite restaurants!  We had a really nice long weekend together!

Seven years ago we promised a life intertwined together forever.  I cannot imagine my life without you.  I admire your character, steadfast patience, and your kindness that you show to everyone.  Most of all, you are my very best friend.  You are the greatest gift of my life, and each day spent with you is truly a gift.  I love you and I am so honored to be your partner in life.  I cannot wait to see what our life looks like in another seven years!  Happy Anniversary!