I wanted a place to keep all my Christmas Cards through out the years. Maybe it will inspire others.

2011

May Your Days Be Merry & Bright

This was not the first Christmas card but it’s the first Christmas card that was digital. Before this I printed pictures and made Christmas cards, think scrapbooking. I still have a few of them I may have to take a picture of them and add them someday.

2012

Merry Beardmas

This card was inspired by my husband. We had taken family photos and as I showed them to people everyone kept mentioning Greg’s beard. I thought it was getting so much attention that maybe we all needed one. I made up some beards for me and the kids with some fur from the craft store. We found a train car to take our pictures in and I had this old luggage crate for us to sit on, kinda worked out perfect. Glad my family is good sports. This still might be one of my favorites.

2013

Live Each Day in the Merriest of Ways

This was a fun card. I had some Christmas props and set up a mock photo booth (a sheet in front of a big window). I wanted it to be bright and fun and that’s exactly what i think I accomplished.

2014

May Your Holidays Sparkle & Your Memories Shine

This year we were getting down to the wire and I hadn’t come up with anything for our card. I said let’s just go outside and throw snow so that’s what we did. This was just outside our front door. We literally only took 1 family photo because when we were taking this photo my big puff of snow ended up going right down Jayse’s back. He already didn’t want to be out there so now he was crying and super mad. But hey the one photo we got worked out great! It’s a good thing I got a couple of just Jaelee and Jayse before the family photo.

This was the first year I started making my card 2 sided. Which I have done now ever since.

2015

Happy Holidays

This year elf on the shelf was really big. So I thought why not make us elves on the shelf. It was another one I didn’t really plan. I just thought about it and went about taking our pictures I was wearing sweats, Jayse still had on jammies but Jaelee looked super cute!

2016

‘Tis the Season

This year I had come up with the idea for our card a couple months in advance. I thought it would be fun for us to be stuck in a snow globe. My brother was living with us so we had to add him. Because I thought about it so far in advance I was able to find and coordinate our outfits in plaid. This was a fun one and again I am so glad my family is a good sport about all of this.

2017

Another Unbelievable Year

This also might be another one of my favorites. I had also thought about this one pretty far in advance. We happened to be in McCall in October for one of Jayse’s football games and I thought it would be a great backdrop for my idea. It’s a beautiful time of year there.

I had an idea that Big Foot would be chasing us. So we set my camera up on a tripod and set it to take multiple photos then we ran towards it pretending something was chasing us. Jayse again was not having it and was being a bit of a grump about the whole thing but we got 1 good shot. I love how much Greg & Jaelee were into it. I bought an image of Big Foot on a stock site and photoshoped him in.

2018

I Spy Christmas 2018

I was thinking about our card last year and had come up with a few ideas. One of those I thought was doing a Where’s Waldo but that ended up morphing into I Spy. I had a lot of fun finding objects to put in there and then figuring out how to incorporate us into the objects. The hardest part was coming up with the rhyming part. I am not a word smith. I had a list of the objects and then googled rhyming words for them. Then I was able to find some that rhymed and put them together. Like I said word smithing is not my strongest talent, LOL.

This one might be the kids favorite, they had a blast looking for the items!

2019

Back to the 80s

I had been wanting to do an awkward family Christmas card for a while. I figured this year would be a good one to do it, with the 80s coming back and all. I’ve seen acid wash jeans, mullets, scrunchies and neon colors everywhere. The 80s are back I tell ya.

I had started looking for our outfits back in October. Jaelee and I took a trip to DI and found everything for our outfits there. I then got a couple of wigs on Amazon. We took a bunch of pictures next to my green screen and then I photoshopped us into a brick background with neon signs.

2020

Quaranteam

What a crazy year 2020 was. The great toilet paper hoard and shortage. I knew I wanted to do something with TP. We had a busy month and Greg was hunting a lot so I had to put something together last minute. We were in the middle of redoing our floor, I set up a scene really quick and took a few photos. And walla that was our card for the year.

2021

Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves

I had this idea for the card for a long time but couldn’t find the right images to do it. I finally found them this year and put the card together.

I wanted us to be shrunk with Santa Claus being normal size. It turned out just as I wanted. I took our pictures with a green screen background and then photoshopped us into the cookie picture. I was able to find some Santa art on stock sites and over layed his pieces on top of all that. I didn’t plan for it to look like a DVD cover but as I started to put it together it just started to look like one so I went with it.

2022

Greetings from Wonderland

I had a different idea for our card this year but we kept saying what a roller coaster of a year this has been so this card was born.

Ever year has it’s ups and downs but this year particularly had some of the highest highs and lowest lows. It felt like we were on a roller coaster all year.

I wanted the card to look like a card you’d send someone from a theme park. I had us go outside and each sit in a chair I’d set up in front of my green screen with a fan blowing on us to make it look like we were really on a roller coaster. It was cold outside. I think about 50 degrees so it was freezing sitting in front of that fan. Everyone was a good sport and I got some images I could put together to put us in a roller coaster. I got a seat and roller coaster image from stock and put it all together.

2023

Spirit of Adventure

We had a lot of adventures in travel this year. I wanted to bring that into our card. I probably should of thought about that while we were traveling and got a fun picture then but I didn’t.

Instead I photoshopped this together with us posing on a green screen and then finding a European looking background to put us in. Jayse and I had a lot of laughs trying to get a picture. Greg got his in just a few clicks. As always I’m glad my family is still willing and good sports for the most part.