A Fun Twist on the Christmas Card Photo

This year I am ON TOP of the whole Christmas Card thing :) Again, my motivation came from the Snapfish B1G2F coupon which worked out REALLY well this year! I got my Thanksgiving photos AND my Christmas Photos out of the way, books and calendars ordered up, a WEEK before Thanksgiving :) YAY ME!

This year I wanted to do something fun.  I saw THIS and THIS on pinterest and LOVED them. I wanted to combine the two somehow so the kids and I came up with our own twist ;-)

 

 

HAHAHA!!! I JUST LOVE THEM! It was a collaboration between all of the kids and I. They wanted to use the reindeer horns/santa hat so we figured a way to incorporate them. They called it a mutiny of sorts, they're "MutanDEERS" LOL!

I had so many options for the last picture I couldn't decide! I just LOVED the eyes on my "Santa" in this one though!

Finding the right card template was harder than I expected with these photos because I wanted them to be big enough to really see the details.  This is the one we ended up going with and I'm happy with it :)

Thanksgiving Photos with A Side of Trespassing

I got THE CUTEST Thanksgiving/Fall Photos of my kids this year!  And it only took 5 minutes!

I would LOVE to say that it's because I am a BOSS at taking pictures ... but it's mostly because TECHNICALLY we MIGHT have been "TRESPASSING" lol

In my neck of the woods we are blessed to be surrounded by orchards that are BEAUTIFUL in the fall. Well most of them have big notsopretty fences around them ... and then I saw this one on a side street near my house ... it spoke to me ... it said "Throw your kids on my leaves and SNAP THOSE PICS! ... Quickly though you're not really supposed to be here."

So when they got home from school and all moaned about how much homework they had I said "Hey that's great, go get something that matches on so I can take some pictures!"

Then I grabbed the burlap "Thankful" banner I made, threw the kids in the car, drove around the block and said "Ok look ... we're gonna get this done in 5 minutes so jump out of the car, smile and look pretty :) OH and be QUIET cause TECHNICALLY we're "trespassing" ... OK ... GO!"

Hehehe I love this one :)  And we DID, we got it done in less than 5 minutes and not a car drove by so I'm pretty sure we're in the clear :)

 Then we rolled up back at home and I snapped a few of each kid for the photo books I needed to finish.

 Which was the major push ifI'mbeinghonest ;-)

When Snapfish has their annual B1G2FREE on photo books and calendars I KNOW it's time to get the camera ready!

Hindsight being 20/20 I'm SO MAD that I had that stupid fake dollar store pumpkin in the background! I had plenty to chose from but just wasn't thinking. Oh well.

 And a few horizontal for my WALL O SEASONAL PICS

 which in hindsight ... I wish I had made vertical because 98% of my good photos are vertical.

 But all in all I'm very happy with how my Fall/Thanksgiving pictures came out :)

My babies are all getting so big and so beautiful *tear*

Jingle Bell Tree

 Jumping on the cone tree crazy last year, I came up with a fun idea! A Jingle Bell Tree! And most of the supplies I got at the dollar store!

Supplies:
cone
5-6 packs of Jingle Bells
green paint/paint brush
hot glue/gun

Step 1: The jingle bells from the dollar store come attached on a string so you'll have to take them apart first.

 Step 2: Then you pop off the tops of the bells so they will lay flat on the cone.

 Step 3: Paint the cone green for the spaces in between the bells.

Step 4: Hot glue those little babies to the cone! I did rings of each color, you could do all the same color, random, or a different pattern all together.   Totally customizable!

 And VOILA! Done and super cute :) Now, I couldn't decide which way I liked more ... sitting flat like this or

 Or with the glass candle stick like this?

I think I like this :)  If you give it a try, I would love to see how they turn out!!
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