How we Made our Christmas Card

I’ve had a lot of requests for a behind the scenes look at how we made our Christmas card this year. I wasn’t sure if anyone would really be interested, but since some of you are - here it goes...

I love using objects from around the house to give it a quirky handmade feel instead of a stiff studio portrait (not that there is anything wrong with studio portraits - I just figure if we’re home let’s make it homey). To set the scene I used a fluffy white duvet insert as snow and a roll of plastic tablecloth taped to the ceiling as the blue sky backdrop (from a party store). There’s a white sheet on the floor. The hot air balloon is a large basket I bought for a few dollars at the Far Hills Rummage sale and a big (36”) red round latex helium balloon from the party store, attached with yarn.

I found instructions on how to build the hot air balloon on Oh Happy Day. It’s really easy and took about 5 minutes to put together.

I did the whole shoot in the playroom where we get lots of natural light. I covered the windows behind the backdrop with a blanket so we wouldn’t get any weird patches of light. I prepped everything while Oliver was napping.

Oliver was wearing Carter’s Christmas pajamas and a santa hat. Georgia was supposed to wear a santa hat or reindeer antlers, but they made her too frantic. It was hard enough to keep her in the basket. While Oliver was on his best behavior (being stuck in a basket with the dog was a dream come true!), Georgia really HATED it. She kept jumping out and her legs would get tangled in the yarn and it was messing up the hot air balloon. I had to TIE her into the basket with yarn to keep her in there.

In the end I took about 500 pictures. About 30 of them were decent, and 10 were good. That’s really my secret for getting pictures of Oliver - take a zillion photos and 1 is bound to be good enough!