the photo shoot-07

Every Christmas ever since 1999 I've {tried} to get all the kiddos in the shot....some years went better than others. The results are usually hysterical and I can bet on one good shot in 50 to be usable for the traditional card.....but lately I've seen the beauty in the not so posed shots because they show the side of the kids that is "real"and so fun. Well, I can tell that they are either getting used to the whole "mommy needs to take a "nice" picture idea" or they are simply growing up {gulp, no way} so they are more apt to play along. For a little bit at least.

So this year marks the first year that I only took a limited number of shots {probably like 14 instead of 50} and on the very first try I actually have all three looking at the camera!!!!! That is so major cool!!! So, I've neglected blogging for a while this week to finish up the cards....having a little trouble with walgreen's quality and cvs prints.....finally just did them up here at home with our Epson printer. I'm a little behind as usual :)

Slide show below......I converted some of them to black and white on my software...then there is the last one...of my two oldest just cracking up at lil'guy. I'm sure he will get his revenge some day.

With Every Christmas Card I Write

for my 100th post....a christmas card

"I foh ears ode"

No honey, playing peek-a-boo with the candles doesn't make them disappear.

I love, love this picture. He's been playing with his new plastic kitchen food, toy cars and race track all week :)

Christmas Card Illustrations

"What Girl Elves Dream About"
by maria

Shoes of course, duh?
I bet she gets so tired of wearing green and red. Red and green. Good thing for that touch of black on the belt buckle. Oh, and everyone knows that good elf shoes are sooo hard to find.
Give the girl a break.

ooooh, I get to add to one of my new categories, Today's Doodle....the doodles were actually done over the course of several days {and evenings.}
This is the first year I have tried this.....putting the "doodles" to good use that is.
I just always put my doodles away in a personal art journal. Okay, I decided not to this year. Instead it will be on some of our holiday cards. But I'm so chicken of my own work :}

I finally had the chance to sit down and finish the doodles that lead to the idea for this Christmas card this morning while keeping little guy {just turned 4!} busy with his own set of pencils and paper.
I Love to bring out all the colored pencils and color!
Because I tend to doodle on different sheets or scraps of paper I have to clip my favorites from the various pages and get them together in a cute arrangement. The next step is to then scan in the artwork.

The December 2007 issue of Good Housekeeping has a ton of holiday planning guides and lots of tips and ideas for this cheery time of year. One of the articles {pg. 141, if you have it} rates the 5 Best Sites for Holiday Cards. On the list is this site I've never visited {might try it this year} It says that the site, zazzle, will let you scan in your artwork or your child's to have printed as part of your card's border or background. Sounds interesting...going to check that out later. Also, if someone else wants to use your design, zazzle will pay you royalties. That's new, don't know of another card site that does that.