Family Christmas Cards (+ Minted Giveaway!)

Y’all. Christmas is single-digit-weeks-away and we are about to embark on one of my favorite holiday traditions, sending and receiving Christmas cards. I literally skip to the mailbox every day in December and my heart sings when I open cards with adorable photos of our friends and family. 

I really do enjoy the entire process (hence why I am talking about it in October), and try to keep it low stress. By now, even the Big Sweet has accepted that it is perfectly normal to start discussing this topic in September. Today I am going to share my process and I am thrilled that Minted has offered to giveaway $50 to their site for one of my fabulous readers!

For our family Christmas cards, I first think about outfits for my crew. If you’ve never done this, it can be overwhelming. Here is my tip: Have a general color scheme in mind to start. For mine, I went with navy, brown and a pop of orange-y red. I knew I wanted to wear my new super cozy blanket scarf, so that was a great starting point. 

From there, based on the general color scheme, I like to pick out my outfit first. Find an outfit that you love. Makes you feel like a million bucks. Makes you smile. Makes you look skinny. #whatever


Once your outfit is decided, start adding in the family outfits by mixing and matching different pieces until you have the look you want. I hung mine in the hall where I walked by a few times a day and would try different options here and there. 

              

I wanted to be sure that the Sweets would coordinate on their own as well. Now, here is the thing- I didn’t run out and buy all new clothes for this. In fact, the only thing that was new for this was my blanket scarf. #cometomama 
I believe with a little effort you can find great outfits without having to spend lots of money and make yourself crazy.

The night before you plan to take pics, finalize every last detail. You may think to yourself, I will have plenty of time tomorrow to press the shirts, find the matching socks. Well. You won’t. 
Trust me. 
The night before, make sure every. last. detail. is buttoned up. 
Do as I say not as I do, mmm-kay? 

This year, we did a DIY photo session. I considered hiring a photographer but I also wanted to keep it light and keep the pressure off.  I have an inexpensive tripod (came free with one of my lenses) to set up my camera and an inexpensive camera remote (less than $10). This remote has really come in handy to help avoid having to run like a nut back and forth from the tripod to the camera.  

However, I must admit getting both boys to smile is pretty tough at ages 4 and 15 months. I am pretty sure I took 1,000,000 photos. 
There were sticks. There were suckers. There were spy watches. 

But we did end up with a couple that should work just fine. Not so fast though! I like my card to remain a surprise until they arrive in the mail so I will not be sharing my finished product now. #ooohhhhthesuspense

OK, now that the photo session is over, here comes the really fun part. I popped on my Pandora Christmas station (yes, I realize it’s October) and started looking through the great options over at Minted. I love how you can upload your photo and it gives you a quick glance of what your image will look like within their designs. That was a game changer for me and made it super simple to make my choice. There were so many great options to choose from but here are a few that caught my eye.

Thanks again to Minted for partnering with me to offer $50 to a lucky winner. Enter for your chance to win below.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

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