The Official Vallimont Holiday Cards Post

Each year I get really excited about Halloween. I go a bit overboard. This reminds me that I need to create a post just on our insane costumes. But when I wake up on November 1st, the pressure of the holidays hits me immediately. That normally means I pretty immediately must begin working on this year’s holiday card. It feels like the holidays are still far off, but in reality I need to have the design done around Thanksgiving. Because we still need time to get it to the printer, address a gazillion envelopes and get them all mailed. Each year I say I will be more on time and each year we struggle to get them to to people by the last week in December. Maybe this year will be different?

Over the years, our cards have become a bit infamous. Throughout the year I have colleagues, friends, colleagues of Josh’s, people I probably don’t know - all tell me how excited they are to get this year’s card. No pressure. The cards evolved pretty quickly. The first few years with kids were just simple normal cards. As my birthday parties and subsequent invites became more elaborate, so did our holiday cards. Every year I think “How will I ever top this one?” I actually have no clue what I’m doing this year and pulled out the last few years’ cards as inspiration.

I’d love any suggestions. In the meantime, here a the last couple of years’ with a bit of the behind the scenes that I never share with anyone.

2011

This is the card that started it all. Down the rabbit hole. People loved this card. Not a whole lot of Photoshop skills needed for this. Those were the days - when making a card was simple. I’m sure back then it felt just as daunting.

2012

This photo shoot of the kids this year was just so cute that we went with the “show me your kids” route. Those poofs and his dimples kill me. This was the first year I started the tradition of making ornaments. The professional printer we use has metal photo ornaments you can buy for $9/piece. Each year I create a design using the card layouts and give to ever family member as a keepsake. After 6 years, it is one of the favorite parts of our tree. I might go back and make ornaments for the other years, too.

2013

This year was still pretty traditional. I still used a family photo and a more typical card layout. I did all the design myself and this was the first year I started playing around with editing in Photoshop. When I say I “did all the design” I probably meant that I found an image that I could manipulate and edit. I get asked a lot, but I still do all my work in Photoshop Elements. I haven’t run across anything yet where I felt like I needed the full-blown Photoshop.

2014

Things took a bit of leap this year. I went all in. Quickly. I stumbled across this family who did over the top Christmas Cards and have used several of their ideas as inspiration. I loved their idea for a DVD case. I did hold back and didn’t make an ACTUAL DVD. This is the front and back of the card. For this one, I really did design almost everything. I found a sample for the DVD back that I was able to edit so that even the smallest details were somehow connected to us and our year. I blame this card for being the “one that started it all”.

2015

After the DVD card, I knew I had to step it up. I also liked the idea of a magazine cover and sample magazine page. Thank goodness I didn’t actually make a whole magazine. I played off the popular People Magazine Most Beautiful People issue and tried to fit as many details of our year into not only the feature story, but onto the cover. The over the top portion was probably our music video. The QR scan on the front takes you to a lip synching video we did our matching outfits. I have no idea how that song or performance relates at all, but it was fun.

2016

Unless I was going to write an actual family novel this year, I knew I had to go in a different direction. This one definitely came from my inspiration family. However, they used actual photos of themselves and edited to make them look plastic. I had gotten good in Photoshop but that wasn’t happening. Instead I researched this actual toy line and found four figurines that looked like us. The plastic packaging layer was the hardest thing I had done to date in Photoshop and I was pretty proud of how this turned out. My favorite part was coming up with the accessories for the family and the little details I hid throughout the back.

2017

Wow. This was honestly the most ambitious and hardest thing I’ve ever made, for several reasons. I loved the idea of multiple shots and giving people an activity. First we had to get the pictures. This took brainstorming every shot and having all the props ready. We knew the kids would only cooperate so long. Also, we needed the lighting to stay fairly consistent. Then there was the matter of actually getting the photos. We shot all of this with our iPhones. We rigged them onto the roof of our porch and shot each picture underneath on top of a white sheet. We got fancy and bought a remote so that we could take the pictures from the ground. It worked for about 5 minutes before breaking. We had to do all the other photos by having one of us stand at the top of the ladder and try to get each shot with the same angle. Luckily, we did the family shot first. Once we got the photos, it got even harder. I had to figure out how to stitch all the photos together so that the perspective looked right and each of the pictures blended in together, looking like it was all on one background. It took hours. Lots of hours. This card will always be special because of the inclusion of our two dogs, Blu and Tonka. Within a few months of this, both of them had unexpectedly passed away from cancer.

2018

Coming Soon! I really love this one. We went a completely different direction. Once cards are received I will post online here.