Anatomy of a Family Holiday Card

I think most greeting card and stationery designers would agree, that designing a card for yourself is more difficult than designing a card for the masses. Strange but true. So where to begin? This year I knew a few things right off the bat. I knew I wanted to depart from (gasp!) my favorite color red. I wanted to steer clear of holiday colors in general. I knew that I did indeed want to use photography. Specifically pictures of my daughters. The picture of my oldest dancing in her EllieBellie Kids Tutu is what ultimately served as inspiration. I love it that she's dancing on our unfashionable little basketball court/tricycle track. Aahhh...the magic of photography! Especially that of photographer Genevieve Fridley.

What does a holiday with atypical colors and tutus bring to mind? Well for this former ballerina, it instantly conjured up sugarplums! And thus the card was created. I went reverse with the color this year, keeping the card itself black and white and letting the punch-colored plum envelope, lined with a deep, shimmering aubergine, do most of the "talking." Inside is a picture of my littliest sugarplum fairy (also in a tutu and looking rather herself with an impish look on her face), the famous "while visions of sugarplums..." quote from 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and a holiday greeting from my family. This year, I actually had a fun time creating my cards. I like to design by setting up some limitations for myself, and the challenge of creating something to fit within those boundaries. It's almost as thrilling as getting cards from around the country delivered to my mailbox! Well, another design challenge complete. Time to put this job to bed for a long winter's nap...

Happy holidays from my studio to your studio, home, iphone, or wherever it is people do their blog reading nowadays. Oh and p.s., Santa, if your listening...I'd love an iphone of my own someday.