Surprise! The final craft in Veronica’s 12 Crafts for Christmas is written by yours truly, the Carlos in carlosandveronica.net. And the final one, the No 1 Craft for Christmas is… (drumroll please….) our family holiday cards!
We really wanted to have a fun and colorful family portrait on each of the cards. For my part, I thought that the photos should show how fun-loving we are as a group. So one evening a few weeks ago, we had a little photo shoot at my parents’ living room by their big and beautiful tree.
As with all of our crafts, they are 100% DIY, so we did not enlist the help of a photographer to assist in the creation of the holiday card. We instead opted to use the camera’s 10-second timer. This turned out to be both difficult and fun! I would set up the shot, pull focus, and hit the button that starts the timer. As we all loudly counted down from 10 to 1, we madly scrambled into our places before the shutter clicked open. Popcorn helped to keep the children still, but only really a little.
Now, the actual layout was done by me, including the physical art direction of the template into which the photos were photoshopped in. I initially wanted the card to be a photo of a photo, but glare/reflections were problems I didn’t want to deal with, and so we scrapped that idea and went with this instead. The main idea was to have a concept that worked in full 4″ x 6″ printed postcard size, but could also be cropped down to a square to be sent via Instagram, WhatsApp, or BBM to our friends abroad whose mailing addresses we did not have. Nica wanted a classic typeface to ironically frame the more idiotic of the photos.
Now on that note… about the shovel. Since we gave out the cards, both in the real world and online, multiple people have said the same thing: “Wow, thank you so much! …What’s with the shovel?!” Well, the inspiration for the shovel was just that I didn’t just want to have a cheesy portrait. So I thought about all those posts on blogs, digg, and other sites over the years about the most unusual family portraits. They’re always perfectly fine except for one or two things out of place. I also remember finding those portraits really funny too. The shovel is kind of an homage to that.
Here are the three other variants that we made. Each had a red version and a white version of the layout.
So that’s it! The twelfth in the 12. Finally, Nica and I have completed the 12 Crafts for Christmas! Hooray! Of course, they were mostly done by Nica and Summer, though I did help eat some. Truthfully, I have many reasons to celebrate! Today is Christmas and our Savior is born! On top of that, it’s been an awesome year for my company, HoneycombCommunities. Summer has learned so many new things. Emma is walking and talking. Nica has rediscovered her love for handicrafts. Ultimately, our home is wilder and happier than ever. I think that the card accurately captures that. Don’t you?
Merry Christmas, my friends. Much of the magic of the season and of December 25th has been rediscovered in my life since these kids have come into my life. Not just Summer and Emma, but also their cousins, Cadence, Dylan, and Vito. The truth is that it started when it was even just Vito. So here’s my wish for you reading this now: may you discover the magic of the season with the wonder of a child. Drop the cynicism for a day or two. Just keep it simple. You’re celebrating something amazing. There’s a baby named Jesus, and everything that’s new starts now.
May your days be merry and bright.
Check out the other projects in our 12 Crafts for Christmas:
No 12: Paper Crafts on Wreath
No 11: “Oh What Fun” Paper Mobile
No 10: DIY Advent Calendar
No 9: Christmas Themed Art Display
No 8: DIY Fabric Wrapped Christmas Balls
No 7: A Joyful, Joyful Pillowcase
No 6: Bottle Cap Photo Frame Ornaments
No 5: Five Cheap & easy Gift Wrapping Ideas
No 4: DIY Card Set Gift Idea
No 3: Sparkly Christmas Brooch
No 2: Cookies and Cream Cake Pops
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