Every year I get tons of compliments and questions about my Holiday Cards. Like most people with kids I get the photo cards. There are tons of websites to choose layouts from. I usually browse several sites until I find the card that I want to use. Sometimes I have the picture first. This year I picked out the card first.

We just had a birthday party in November for our son Gabriel who just turned one. The birthday party was a magical woodland theme with gnomes and fairies. I’ll be posting more about the party after the New Year. I spent probably an hour online looking at different card designs. In my browsing for the perfect card I found one that had gnomes on it. The caption read “Have yourself a merry little Christmas from our gnome to yours”. I had my card all I needed now was the picture.

So I dressed my boys in elf shirts and had them wear gnome hats that we had left over from the party. To keep them occupied and in the frame I bought a basket and filled it with plastic ornaments and other Christmasy items to keep them busy. I picked what I thought would be the best time of day for my kids which was after breakfast. Its early enough in the day that they’re well rested and after breakfast so they’re bellies are full.

When taking pictures of my kids I don’t like to use a flash I think the pictures turn out better so I made sure there was enough light. Then I just took as many pictures as I could to ensure my chances of getting a good one. I also selected the option of having the back of the card be a collage of some of my favorite out takes, which for me makes the card. We had so much fun making our cards and even more fun sharing them.