Tips on How to Make Your Christmas Photo Great

Nothing makes holiday photo cards unique, personal, and memorable like including a great photograph. It offers the perfect opportunity to let your personality shine.

 

While this is all tons of fun, taking a great photo for your holiday photo cards can be more difficult than you might first think. The hardest part is deciding what kind of picture you'd like to take. From formal posed portraits to candid and funny shots, here are a few ideas for taking great holiday pictures for your Christmas photo cards.

 

What Comes First, the Picture or the Card?

 

This question can lead to quite a debate between people who take their holiday photo cards seriously. Some people choose a card that suits a picture already taken while others like to choose their Christmas photo cards first and then take their picture so it matches the card.

 

Regardless of which works best for you, at least looking at the selection of holiday photo cards available will give you some ideas for the size of photograph you might want to take and some ideas for colors that might complement the look of several of your favorite cards. Some of our holiday cards are all about your photographs, such as our All About You Holiday Photo Card or Classy Collage Holiday Photo Card.  They offer the opportunity to include many images, so knowing your choices might help spark an idea for the perfect Christmas picture that wins best of the season.

 

Ideas for Standout Christmas Photo Cards

 

You’ve heard the saying, "The more, the merrier?" Well, it's definitely true when it comes to your holiday photo cards. Don't just put your kids in the picture this year. Jump in the picture yourself along with the dog and your pet hamster to make a merry picture even merrier. While everyone loves seeing pictures of cute kids, your card recipients will also appreciate seeing the whole family in the picture. (That means you, too, Mom and Dad.)

 

If you want to do something a little different, consider taking black and white pictures for your Christmas photo cards. Most digital cameras have a setting that will allow you to shoot in black and white or you can use software to change your digital photo to a grayscale image. Black and white photographs look best when very simple, such as a close up of a baby sleeping or work well when you love how the people in the photo look but the background colors are distracting.

 

While posed portrait shots are gorgeous, sometimes the best pictures are candid shots full of personality. Instead of stiff posed portraits of your children standing in front of the Christmas tree with perfect hair and not a wrinkled shirt in sight, consider taking snapshots of the family goofing around, giggling, acting silly, or doing things they enjoy.

 

Gift Boxes - Put some open big gift boxes under your tree and let your child, cat, husband, or whoever sit in the box and put their hands up just like they popped right out on Christmas morning. You can even set the scene by strewing wrapping paper and bows around or even place a bow on their head for a super cute photograph.

 

Include the Year - If you have at least four people in your shot, you have the perfect opportunity to include the year in your photograph. Simply buy large wooden numbers from your local craft store and paint them with a holiday theme or make your own creative numbers for the year of your photograph. Have the people in your photo hold the numbers up in a fun or unusual way and no one will ever have to think back to remember what year you took this Christmas photograph.

 

Trimming the Tree - This is an oldie, but a goodie that still makes for a great picture for Christmas photo cards. This can be Norman Rockwell type image where you set up something funny like Mom decorating the tree, Dad placing a star on top, and the kids sneaking a peek at their presents under their feet.

 

Antlers and Santa Hats - Overdone? Perhaps. But still as cute as ever for holiday photo cards, especially on kids and pets.

 

With many styles and colors of holiday photo cards available, we make it easy to try something different or stick with traditional pictures for your Christmas photo card this year. Start planning early and let your imagination go wild for the most special holiday cards of the season.

Pocket Photo Holiday Cards

Starting to stress out that you don't have your holiday photo picked out yet or aren't sure what you're even going to do? Would you LOVE to get your holiday cards ordered and addressed but think you can't do that without having your photo ready? You're not alone. I'm right with you.

Introducing our Pear Tree Greetings Pocket Holiday Card collection where you insert your own photo.

Not only are they beautiful and unique but they solve all of the above problems! You can order them and even address the envelopes without having to pick out your photo yet. Plus, if you have had your photo taken by a professional this allows you to order 4x6 prints directly from them and place in one of these beautiful pocket cards.

So, problem solved, stress reduced.

Here are a few of my favorite pocket designs for 2009.

Jump for Joy - Holiday Photo Card

Sweet Blossoms - Photo Holiday Card

Holly Haven - Holiday Photo Card

Go “Green” with Recycled Christmas Cards

With the Christmas season approaching quickly, the time for choosing holiday cards is here. Whether selecting cards to send to your family and friends or also to your customers and business colleagues, giving 'green' Christmas cards is an environm­ental choice that is more popular than ever. Today's green, or recycled, Christmas cards look a lot different than the recycled cards of the past, making them both an eco-friendly and beautiful choice for this holiday season.

 

Until recently, recycled paper looked…well, recycled. It usually resembled that brown craft paper sold in rolls at your local arts and crafts store. It had flecks of particles in it that gave it an unmistakably recycled look. However, today's recycled Christmas cards are much different from those of the past.

 

Today, recycled paper looks just as clean and bright as brand new paper made from virgin tree pulp. In fact, if it weren't for the recycled paper symbol that is printed on each of these cards, you would have a difficult time telling recycled paper from new paper.

 

When shopping for holiday cards made from recycled paper, you'll find that all our flat and folded cards are made from 100% recycled post-consumer fibers. We also have a selection of holiday cards that showcase recycled themes in the designs. Whether you want to promote environmental awareness, make a statement about your environmental concerns, or just fall in love with one of our designs that just happens to be printed on recycled paper, you are sure to find the perfect holiday cards to express season's greetings to everyone on your list.

 

Here are some of our most popular recycled Christmas cards. Available in more colors than just standard red and green, our recycled Christmas cards make it simple and fun to send a holiday message that suits your personal style.

 

 

Christmas Two for One - Recycled Christmas Card

 

Spot-On - Recycled Christmas Card

 

Sending recycled Christmas cards from Pear Tree Greetings shows much more than your love and good cheer toward the recipient. They also share your love for our planet and environment during this festive holiday season.

YOU are so creative!

I've been reviewing a few real customer orders from the past few days, and was a little surprised to see quite a few holiday items still making the list. So, I dug a little deeper to see what you're actually doing with them.

Man you guys are creative.

I openly admit that I am kind of a 'copier'. It's how I do most of my scrapbooking. I see a layout in my magazines for inspiration and then I make it my own. Generally they don't turn out anything close to the original inspiration, and not always by intent, but that's how I operate. I need inspiration, then I can do it.

Kind of like a post from a long time ago about unique ways to type your names on a holiday card, other than just 'Bryan, Christy and Connor'. See the post here. I didn't come up with any of them, I just saw them on random designs here and there and fell in love.

To the point of my post. I want to share a few of the things you guys are doing and maybe help you out if you're like me...and need inspiration.

          

I'm so sorry about the terrible image quality above, but I needed to remove the customer's real information. The first one above left, they used the Terrific Trio Photo Holiday Card  and created a cute Save the Date.

The second one above they used the Togetherness -- Mocha & Sky Photo Holiday Card to create a flat, non-folding Thank You card. Who would have thought? Cute idea. And looking at this design, it could totally work for a little boy's birth announcement.

   

Another take on a non-traditional thank you card. Cute. This one used the Polka-Dot Fashion -- Olive Photo Holiday card.

 

And lastly, someone used the above design for a Valentine's Day card. Adorable! It's the All Wrapped Up Photo Card in Cranberry.

I would LOVE to see what you guys are doing with cards from Pear Tree Greetings. Feel free to email me at christy@peartreegreetings.com!

Happy FRIDAY!

10 Tips For an Eco-Friendly Holiday Season:

'Tis the season to be GREEN! This holiday season keep your eco-friendly efforts going with these tips to make it a very special season ‘green’tings for your friends and family!

1. Shop Green. Keep down your costs and environmental impact by shopping online. You will save yourself a trip to the store and those long lines. Have the gifts sent directly to the receiver; this way it won’t be sent twice and you save a little extra money. If you have to go to the store, plan shopping trips in advance and carpool to save extra trips to the mall and the grocery store.
2. Bring Your Own Bag. This year– BYOB to the stores with you. Not only will your shopping tote hold your holiday list, but you’ll also feel good knowing you save a few plastic bags in the process. If you have left over bags from shopping, use them for wrapping the gifts or as a trash can liner.
3. Eco-Wrapping Solutions. Find alternatives to wrapping paper. Some of my favorites include:  Using the newspaper comics section for a pop of color or brown grocery bags dressed up with ribbon. For a really trendy look, buy vintage tins at a thrift stores to wrap your presents. Use old holiday cards to create a unique gift tag to tie it all together. Remember, save the bows and ribbons you receive from others for next year.
4. The Gift That Keeps On Giving: For those hard to buy for on your list this year, make a donation to their favorite charity, have a tree planted in their honor, or buy a gift card to their favorite restaurant. Find trendy gifts that are eco-friendly, fair trade, or made from recycled materials online. Offer your services such as babysitting, cooking, or helping someone move. All of these gifts will certainly not be forgotten and won’t end up in next year’s trash.
5. Set a Green Table: Instead of disposable plates, cups, and napkins, opt for cloth napkins and re-usable dishes. Serving dishes can be rented or purchased from restaurant supply stores, or IKEA. After the event, un-needed pieces can be resold on e-bay. If your event calls for disposable pieces, opt for those made from corn or potatoes, these are easily biodegradable compared to Styrofoam or plastic.
6. Waste Not. Buy locally grown organic food to feed your friends and family this year. To reduce waste, buy in large quantities; one large bottle is better than five small ones. Send leftovers home with guests, or donate them to local food kitchens and remember to compost your scraps.
7. Green Christmas Tree. Opt for a real tree, grown from a local tree farm instead of the plastic versions in the stores. One acre of a tree farm creates oxygen to support 18 people and remove 13 tons of airborne pollutants per year. When the holidays are over, contact your city officials to find out where you can take it in for recycling. Recycled trees are used for mulch, and other landscaping uses.
8. Add a Twinkle To Your Holiday. Recycle those old, worn-out, broken and outdated strings of twinkle lights and replace them with LED lights. LED lights use only 1/50^th the energy of regular holiday lights and don’t create a fire hazard!  Turn off your lights at night to save even more energy. Go to HolidayLEDs.com for more information on recycling your old lights.
9. Festive Décor. Be creative this year using what you find in your own backyard. Make edible decorations such as popcorn strings and cranberry wreaths. Cut down a few bows for décor around the house or collect pinecones for a great centerpiece. The smell of nature is sure to bring out your holiday spirit.
10. Recycled ‘Green’tings Card. Send out holiday greetings made from recycled papers. There are plenty of cool and trendy options here on Pear Tree Greetings to make everyone’s holiday a little more green.
    

 

NOW is the season.

Pear Tree Greetings introduces a whole new line of greetings cards...NOW. Why 'NOW' you ask? The brains behind the line, Brandon, wanted a line of cards that was never repeated. The designs will be what's 'NOW', not last year or last season. Brandon always says, "You wouldn't find the same sweater in the store as last season. It's a whole new line. New styles, new designs, new colors. That's what NOW is."

Pretty cool if you ask me!

The line also adds a little spice to Pear Tree. With some non-traditional verse options (and the ability to create your own) and bright color pallette...it'll be hard to not like these cards!

Here are some examples...

Frosty Frolic

Verse options:

"...Shake it like it's hot."
"...Wishing you the best of both worlds."
"...Warm Wishes this holiday season."
"...At least they're not in your yard."

Curious Gnomes

Verse options:

"Don't let the crowds get to you."
"From our gnome to yours. Happy Holidays."
"Smile. It's not supposed to make sense."
"Saddle up, let's ride!"

Sweet Sparkles

Verse options:

"...And a little too much eggnog."
"...Light the way to a beautiful holiday."
"...How did I get under the Christmas tree?"
".....Sometimes the holidays are best spent blurrily."

Aren't they fun? Check them out!

Christmas Cards...even more of them!

We've expanded our Christmas Card offering!

We now have pockets...for that added excitement to your holiday cards.

New religious cards! Rich in style AND meaning!

and our newest category...NOW cards. More on these amazingly funny cards in a future post!

creative signatures

Sick of just seeing 'Love, the Johnson Family', or 'Marc, Jenni and Kellen Johnson on greeting cards? Want to add some flair to your holiday photo cards or christmas cards this year? Look below for some clever ways to spice it up!

[ the johnsons ]

Marc/Jenni/Kellen

Marc * Jenni * Kellen

Marc | Jenni | Kellen

MARC:JENNI:KELLEN

marc. jenni. kellen.

THE JOHNSON FAMILY: Marc, Jenni + Kellen

marc - jenni - kellen

and there are so many more options. Experiment with your keyboard (put all those random characters to use!), change up going all caps, all lowercase or using both upper and lower.

Think beyond the comma.

going green

Going green. Pretty popular phrase these days. Should have probably been popular years and years ago...but, we can't go back, we can only move forward. Making sure we offered Recycled Photo Cards and Recycled Christmas cards was important to us. You'll find that we have these cards specifically called out in their own categories, but also know that nearly all of our Photo cards and Christmas cards are printed on paper that is made with at least 10% post-consumer fibers. We specifically called out the cards that appear in the Recycled sections because they are made with at least 30% post-consumer fibers (a lot of them are 100%!) and sometimes have an obvious eco-friendly design.

Here are a few of my favorites from the Recycled Photo Cards section.

 

And some of my picks from the Recycled Christmas Card category:

This card is one of my absolute favorite! Check out what is says:

12 scooters scooting, 11 WINDMILLS A-TURNING, 10 bamboo fields a-growing, 9 SOY CANDLES A-BURNING, 8 composts composting, 7 HORMONE-FREE HENS A-LAYING, 6 carbon credits, 5 BAGS OF FAIR TRADE ORGANIC COFFEE BEANS, 4 compact fluorescent light bulbs, 3 TOFU BURGERS, 2 solar panels AND A FREE-RANGE ORGANIC TURKEY

And a few more:

We have even more designs on the way so the ones above and on the site are just a sampling. For the specific recycled content information about each card, refer to each card's detailed information.

Have a great weekend!

And we're live!

on the world wide web. We officially turned Pear Tree live yesterday afternoon, exciting! Please note that we are still working through a few things, as I mentioned yesterday, but we couldn't help ourselves and had to launch.

Some of the cutest product on the site I think falls into the Recycled Photo Card and Recycled Christmas card categories. Adorable designs! And all are printed on paper that is AT LEAST 30% post consumer, if not 100%! A snapshot of a few of the designs...