How to Make Your Own Holiday Family Portrait Card
- 1). Take your family's portrait during summer vacation, when you're all together and relaxed. Chances are you'll get a better picture than you would closer to the holiday season, when everyone's mind is on school exams, choir practice and end-of-the-year deadlines at work.
- 2). Reshoot the picture at a later date if your first results don't please you. This is another advantage to taking the portrait early.
- 3). Think about your calendar, both business and social, for the three months preceding the year-end holidays and set aside small chunks of time to work on your cards. Plan to do a few at a time while you watch television, eat lunch at your desk or cool your heels in the dentist's waiting room.
- 4). Choose the format for your card. For inspiration peruse books, magazines and the inventory of art supply and craft shops.
- 5). Think beyond the normal card that most likely will end up stashed in a shoe box. Instead, fasten your picture to its backing with photo corners so the recipient can detach it and slip it into a photo album.
- 6). Go one step beyond a card for special friends and relatives: Make your portrait the cover of a small album filled with snapshots you've taken throughout the year. (Art supply stores sell colorful, miniature albums that slide easily into envelopes.)