Five Tips for Planning the Perfect Senior Photoshoot and What You Should Do With Them

My oldest son is a senior in high school this year. It wouldn't be a senior year without senior pictures! I went back and forth on when to do them. My kids grow and change {yes, even the senior!} so much during the year, that I decided to wait until the spring to have him meet up with a photographer. But sometimes, seniors meet up with a photographer as early as the summer before their senior year, so I want to make sure you are prepared with some tips from our amazing photographer Rebecca Anne. Rebecca has far more experience than I do and can give you her five tips for planning the perfect senior photo shoot.

Prepping for your senior session can sometimes be overwhelming and you do not even know where to start. Well I want to share a few tips to help get you started to have the best senior portrait shoot possible with five of my favorite tips.

1. Plan your outfits

The number one question I get asked when starting to plan a senior session is what to wear?!  A few quick tips would be to start out with an outfit that makes you feel comfortable.  Maybe it's your favorite pair of jeans and a shirt you know you know makes you look great.  That way you start off the shoot feeling relaxed and yourself! Then take it up a notch.  Ladies, bring out that dress that just fits you perfectly along with some statement jewelry and fun shoes!  Gentlemen, layers are always so complimentary for you!  Don’t forget you can have fun with shoes too.  And you can never go wrong with a formal outfit.  

A couple notes on what to avoid: neon colors close to your face, clothes that are too tight (or way too loose) or clothing that is very short that might limit your ability to pose.  Overall, don’t overthink it and go with what you know you look good in!

2. Pick an epic location

The location of your shoot really depicts the feel of your images.  A city shoot will feel more modern and edgy. Woods or mountains will feel more adventurous.  Or the beach shoot may feel more relaxed.  

3. Bring fun props

It is always great to have props that help represent where you are at this stage of life.  Maybe playing that instrument for your school band or church worship team was one of your favorite parts of high school.  Or how about meeting your best friends on that team sport?  Your dog might be incredibly special to you and you want to remember them.  There are so many fun options to help show who you are right now and…well, they are fun!

4. (For the ladies) Have professional hair & make up done

Ladies, you can never go wrong having your hair and makeup professionally done!  It will make you feel special and pampered and plus you’ll look extra great!

5. Have fun!

Don’t forget to relax and enjoy the photoshoot!  Be yourself and just go for it and let yourself have fun!

Such great tips! Thanks Rebecca! If you are local you should definitely check her out. If you aren't local, go like her page on Facebook or Instagram or search her blog and website for some great eye candy! Her photos will inspire you.

Now that you have your senior photos, what should you do with them? 

That's always the next question isn't it? We had the option to buy some very impersonal graduation announcements from a company that the school uses every year. You know the ones. They have the school colors on them and are printed all fancy, but there is never anything unique about them. 

Why not use your senior pictures to create your own graduation announcements?  They are far more unique and provide the exact same information. In fact, they probably provide even more information. I used Mixbook to easily mock up several different designs that my son could choose from. Then, I put the information on the card and now we have a personalized graduation announcement that is not only a keepsake but an invitation for his graduation open house as well. I love killing two birds with one stone, especially right now since it's such a busy time!

Mixbook could not be easier. You literally upload your images and then drag and drop them in. You can find all of the fully customizable graduation designs right here. If you are feeling creative you can even design your own from scratch. 

Since I already uploaded my son's senior photos into Mixbook, I thought that I would create a photo book that we could have at his graduation party. It's so fun to have all of his pictures in one place. 

At the end, I left a few pages blank so that we could also use the photo book as a guest book at his open house.

I love one stop shopping, and while I was on Mixbook.com, I also created these graduation thank you cards. I could not tell you how relieved I was to be able to get nearly everything I needed for graduation in one spot. Not to mention, everything came shipped to me that week and it was such high quality that I am so excited to send it out to all of our friends and family.

Senior year is an exciting time. Now you have 5 great tips in your back pocket that you can use when you are ready to snap those senior pictures. And of course, once you have those pictures in your hands,  you will know just what to do with them!dislaimer: this post may have affiliate links or links to products that I received in exchange for a review. These small purchases on affiliate links or product help me to continue to keep writing content and creating at Holy Craft. Thank you!

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How to Create a Family Year Book

In 2008 I created our first family yearbook. The cover was plain black with a frame where a picture should have been. I had left the space blank unintentionally and the book printed and was sent to me. It wasn't all a fail because through the years I have learned a few things. 

We love having a family yearbook. Quite often I will find a kid or two curled up on the couch flipping through the pages. They love to look at how much they have grown and changed over the years laying the books side by side. Sometimes we go back to reference when one of our family vacations was or when an event happened. It's like our own family time capsule.

I'm excited to be able to share with you how you can create your own family year book. If you are already making a family photo book, perhaps you can still learn a tip or two. I've made a few mistakes and learned a few things through the years!

Through the years I have used several different companies. My favorite books though, all have these black linen covers with a small cutout in them. Most recently I used York Photo and I loved the quality and the ease of ordering and creating. They were actually much more inexpensive than some of the other companies that I have used in the past and side by side, their books are nearly identical. I would most definitely use them again.

1. Be Flexible

While this is called a family yearbook, sometimes it's easier to not get caught up in the process of documenting a years worth of photos. It's been about five years since we had professional family pictures taken, so the most current family photo book is a collection of all of those images.  

I have found that sometimes when I create a photo book, I have a huge amount of pictures that I want to use from family vacations. It's OK to create a photo book with just those images from your family vacation in them. In fact, it's probably going to be much easier for you to have them all in one place rather than to have to narrow them down to fit on just a few pages.

2. Be prepared

Find a system that works for you to compile all of your photos that you want to use for your family yearbook.  We have an album in our shared pictures called current pictures. This is where we put pictures from the current year. Then, when I go to make a book, I just upload the whole year of pre-selected pictures. You can also sort out your images. If you find it easier to upload your images every month to your preferred photo site, do that.  

You and I both know that there are always photo book deals to be had. Being prepared enables you to jump on those great photo book deals when you see them. If you aren't in a rush to compile an album, make sure your images are upload to the site and perhaps even made into your album and then save it. Once that sale happens, hit buy and reap the savings.

3. Customize your layout

This is much more time consuming, but I find that in order to get all the images into my family yearbook that I want, sometimes I need to customize the layout to allow more images to be used. 

Don't get sucked into adding TOO many images to a page though. I have done this with some family pictures, particularly those from family vacations or events and in the end, I wish I had just given them their own book. It would have made looking at those images more enjoyable.

4. Autofill and adjust

Once you have all of your images, select auto fill. Some photo sites will automatically do this. I have never hit buy after an initial auto fill. I always go back and tweak my book to my needs and wants. Start at the beginning and work your way back.

5. Think beyond family photos

Just because you are creating a photo book, doesn't mean that it has to be just photos. Include letters, special newspaper clippings, pictures of the kids drawings or artwork. Include whatever is special to you and your family that year.

6. Keep it simple

While there are lots of layouts out there, my preferred layout is always black and white backgrounds without text. I have added text before and just find that detail cumbersome and it cuts into the space that is available for my images.

7. Don't get hung up on the details

There have been years where I obsessed over the exact dates of events. Your family yearbook is about your year as a family. The detail of Aunt Ruth's party happening before or after the beach trip won't matter. If you think of your book in terms of seasons that usually helps. I can almost always remember what season an event happened in rather than a date.

8. Give some events more space

It's OK to buy extra pages for your family yearbook. I don't pay extra for a lot of things in life, but I will almost always buy extra pages for our family books. I make sure that each child's birthday and their party or event has it's own page and Christmas or other seasonal events like our annual family Turkey Trot gets a few pages of their own as well.

9. Buy extras

I haven't done this yet, but as I prepare to launch a kid off to college I have started thinking more and more about who will get our family yearbooks when the kids move off and leave home. I don't want them to have to wait to inherit them. I want them to each have their own. So from now on, I'm going to start ordering four copies of each family year book. That way, each of my kids will have their own family photo book from that year and I will have a copy for our home.

Hopefully you got a tip or two and are inspired to start thinking about making your own family yearbooks. It's not too late to get started saving those memories!If you are local, we recently had family photographs done by the amazingly talented Rebecca Anne Photography. All photos seen in this post were taken by her. Thanks Rebecca!dislaimer: this post may have affiliate links. By clicking on them and purchasing through them, I may receive a small commission. These small purchases help me to continue to keep writing content and creating at Holy Craft. This post is sponsored by York Photos. Thank you!

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Cross stitch family portrait

This project has been on my to do list since before Christmas when I saw custom family embroidery creations all over the internet. I remember learning how to cross stitch when I was about 10. I was a child of the 80's after all and we cross stitched everything! I hadn't picked up a needle and embroidery floss in nearly 20 years but I remembered how to do it right away.

All three of my kids know that I make things. I create and I craft but rarely do they take the time to appreciate the things that I make. Usually I will get a grunt or a courtesy "that's nice mom" but this time, I got a much better reaction from this little cross stitch family. The kids loved it! All three of them at different times saw it and commented on how great it was. It's sort of like when you see yourself in a picture, you always look at yourself first before focusing on the other people or things in the image. The kids loved the glasses on my husband. They mentioned the long sleeve waffle shirt under his t-shirt {a staple my husband wears often}. They noticed the dog and their clothes. My oldest son loves to dress up so I put him in a suit. So very fitting. They just all around appreciated the work that I put into this project and I loved making it.

It was really easy to create. It did take some time. I worked on it a few minutes at a time here and there, but it was an easy mindless project I could work on while watching TV. I can't wait to show you how you can make your very own custom cross stitch family!

Supplies you will need to make your own cross stitch family portrait:
graph paper
embroidery floss in several different colors
scissors
needle
colored pencils
embroidery cloth

Martha Stewart was kind enough to offer some clip art patterns of people that you can use as a guide. I did just that, using it as a guide more than using them completely. I used some graph paper to draw my guide and used my colored pencils to fill in what color embroidery floss I would be using on each part. Keep in mind the various heights of the children, the size of their feet {my younger two kids had only two squares for their shoes, the rest of us had three}, and the eye spacing {there are four squares between the adults and three squares in the kids}.

I actually bought some embroidery fabric at the Goodwill Outlet {remember, you pay by the pound, so it ended up not being very expensive} and I had some embroidery floss on hand. I only had to buy four new colors of floss that I didn't have in my stash, so overall this was a really inexpensive craft for me.

I decided to frame it in a chunky wood frame and set it on our mantel.

Isn't it so much fun to have our own cross stitch family portrait?

You should make your own. It's such a fun project. And now I'm wondering, what else I should cross stitch because I'm back on the wagon!

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7 Tips for How to Take Your Own Family Christmas Pictures for a Photo Christmas Card

It's closing in on my favorite time of the year...Christmas card season! I love love love Christmas, but my favorite part by far is the steady influx of Christmas cards in my mailbox. It usually starts on the first day of December {some loyal college friends are known for being card number one every.single.year} and it lasts until the start of the new year.

As a family, we get excited to get those cards.  We pray over every one of them at the dinner table, we use their Christmas letters {and Facebook} to fill in the details of that family’s life over the past year, and we proudly display those cards on our walls and on our mantels. The kids anxiously fight over who gets the mail and they tear into the envelopes with reckless abandon. We then pray over the cards we receive that day at the dinner table and we usually share a story or a detail or two about that family before we proudly display those cards on our walls or on our mantel.

Because I so very much cherish every single one of the cards from friends and family near and far, I take great care in making sure I send out a Christmas card that is one to cherish. 

I don't know when the switch happened but it did. When we were first married a zillion years ago, I would go to the store and pick up a few boxes of those stock Christmas cards. I would write a personal message inside each one and we would include our family Christmas letter.  About ten years ago though things started to change. At first we just got a few photo cards at Christmas, and then it was more like half and half and then last year, BAM! Getting a card with no photo was a rarity.

Ten years ago, I sent out our first family photo card. Our youngest son was a newborn and we dressed up our two other kids to look like Mary and Joseph. How adorably cute are they?! That first picture started a new tradition.  My husband would be in charge of writing the Christmas letter {ours doesn't suck} and I would take on the task of getting a photo for the Christmas card.

Some years it was a no brainer. There were a few years that we had professional photos taken, so I included those images, but professional photos are expensive, and well, I just didn't have it in the budget to hire a photographer every year.  But I loved the look of a professional photo.

About three years ago, I got smart. Perhaps I'm the only one that hadn't had the ah ha moment yet, but I thought, we have a camera and that camera has a self timer, lets just go to the park and take a family picture. 

There was no scheduled day or time. No hoping that the weather would cooperate on the day that we had scheduled, no long drawn out posing session with a stranger.  We set our own day and made up our own time. We showed up. And you know what? It's worked out great for us.  So I have a few tips for you in case you want to try taking your own family pictures for your Christmas card.

1. Invest in a tripod

The first year, we took my camera and placed it on a ladder that was acting like our tripod. The second year, we borrowed a tripod.  This year, I finally bought a tripod. They aren't very expensive and it will come in handy more often than you think that it will.

2. Get familiar with your camera's timer

There is nothing more frustrating that being frustrated with technology. Especially when other people are waiting on you to get said technology working. Read your manual before you go. Set whatever settings you need ahead of time. We have ours on a 10 second timer to give my husband time to press the button and get in the shot.

Some of you may be fancier than we are and have wireless remotes. We aren't there yet, but just so you know, that technology exists if you want to go that route.

3. Pick a location

It still doesn't feel totally comfortable for us to stand in the middle of a crowded place and smile awkwardly off into the distance. We like to pick locations for photos where we are sure to not see anyone. This may not matter to you, so your options are more open. 

4. Save room

My husband is usually the one pushing the button on the camera so we have to make sure we save him room in the picture for him to run quickly into his spot. Save a spot for everyone!

5. Take a test shot

Make sure before you take a whole bunch of pictures that the location is o.k. You don't want to be standing in a stream of light that is blinding to everyone or in a shadow that washes you all out. Get the settings on your camera set {nothing wrong with auto mode sometimes!} and focus on your family so that you aren't all blurry but the leaf behind you is super crisp!

6. Take lots of pictures

Take more pictures than you ever think you will need. I would rather have more to work with than not enough.

7. Leave your pets at home

Our golden retriever Sophie is a part of our family.  We love her dearly, BUT if we are trying to take our own photos, scurry to jump into a picture and have everyone looking decent, adding the wild card that a pet brings, makes getting a good shot so much harder! With someone running back and forth, the dog is sure to be looking the wrong way!

I always get home super excited to see the pictures that we took. Another perk to taking your own...there is no delay in getting those shots into your hands!  

Next step is narrowing them down and ordering your Christmas cards.  I love using Tiny Prints. There are so many great high quality options to choose from. The website is super easy to navigate and I can easily narrow down my Christmas card search with a glance when I use the "show my photo" option.  This is the best feature in my opinion.  It's so much easier to select a card for your family when you are seeing your family and your picture instead of stock image.

Every year I drool over the newsletter cards. My husband has written his signature Christmas letter for nearly two decades and I can't justify switching it up for a newsletter card, but man, I would love it if we got a few of these in the mail.

It's inevitable that every year we get what we call the "I'm alive" report.  You know what those are. It's the card that comes in the mail with a picture of kids you don't know and the standard printed message: "Love, The Smith Family." Those are great. We appreciate knowing you are alive, but what we would appreciate more is just a few lines letting us know what you were alive doing. I love those little details.  But honestly, I'm not going to get all hung up on that. I just love getting Christmas cards in the mail!

I decided what picture I wanted to use for the card and that helped narrow down which card selection we could make {I picked the Happy Expression card}.  Also, if you want to select one photo or even up to five or more, you can do that as well!  I love that you can personalize the backs of the cards, so I settled on making my selection with one large horizontal family photo on the front and a collage of pictures on the back.

You can also choose the trim that you want {I like the traditional rectangle}, your greeting {I always have a card that says Merry Christmas}, you can select a color, your paper {I like matte} and your format {horizontal, vertical or square}.  It's so easy to personalize your card so that it's one of a kind. And let me tell you, there are years when we get the same exact card several times!

If you really want to personalize it, you can add envelope liners to match your cards. Talk about swanky!

 

While I was placing my order, I also decided to make life easier this Christmas {because we all need that amIright?} and order pre-printed personalized gift labels.  I love these because they are self-adhesive and I can adhere them to anything, including these clearance priced holiday candles I bought last year for 90% off.  This little touch created the perfect neighbor gift don't you think?

Lest you think taking Christmas photos on your own is smooth sailing, I wanted to include these outtakes from our little family session.

It really is a ton of fun doing it yourself! If you want the look of professional photos but don't want to pay the price tag, give it a shot on your own. I know you can do it!

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Tiny Prints through their partnership with POPSUGAR Select. While I was compensated to write a post about Tiny Prints, all opinions are my own.

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