Creating family heirlooms from your portrait session

If there’s one thing I’m passionate about as a family and newborn photographer, it’s printing photos and creating beautiful heirlooms from your portraits. In a digital age, it’s tempting to let our images live on our devices. And believe me, as a busy mom… I understand why. But, there’s something so powerful about seeing our images where we live and grow as a family. That’s why creating heirloom products together is a service I provide to every family that I work with, and it's why we get together in person after the session to choose your favorite portraits that you want to print and enjoy.

Choosing the Perfect Spot for Your Portraits

My favorite part about helping you create heirloom products from your portraits is determining the perfect spot for your portraits in your home! Strategically placed portraits will bring a smile to your face every time you see them, and that is what’s so special about them!

One of the spots I always recommend a family or sibling portrait is at the top or bottom of the stairs, or outside of the bedrooms. This is because after a long day with a baby or toddlers, you tuck them into bed at night and close the door and let out an exhausted sigh just thinking about the day, but seeing that portrait of their smiling faces will help you reset and bring you so much joy.

Wall Art and Self-Esteem

Believe it or not, there is power in showing your children that they matter through portraits and photos hanging on the walls or on display in your home. Giving them a place where they feel like they are valued and where they belong is so important. I actually read the article linked below years ago, and I come back to it time and time again thinking about how powerful it is for children to see themselves up on the walls with their families.

Heirloom Albums

Albums have the same impact on my son, and he pulls our family albums off the shelf at least weekly to turn the pages and talk about the photos and stories that he sees there. He now keeps our most recent annual album in his bedroom, and it's one of his favorite quiet time activities to enjoy! There’s nothing that brings me more joy than watching him thumb through our albums. It’s so special to all of us!

Heirlooms for Gifts

After we’ve finished deciding what’s best for your family, I always like to talk about gift options! Grandparents love our mini accordion - well, really anything that shows off their sweet grandchildren or family. I love giving out photos of my son to our family for the holidays. Everyone loves updated portraits and I love knowing that what they’re being given is beautiful, sturdy, and truly an heirloom to enjoy for years! Beyond our accordion albums, our collection boxes with matted portraits are often so popular for gifts (or for gallery walls!).

No matter what combination of heirlooms you choose to create from your portraits, my goal is the same. I want you to celebrate your family every single day and enjoy their faces on display in your home. Days go by quickly with our babies, and I know for myself, seeing portraits of my son lining our walls always brings me so much joy. I hope it will for your family too!

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Save it for later:

Product Feature: Introducing Our New Collection Boxes with Matted Portraits

Maybe you’ve already enjoyed a peek into our Collection Boxes on The Artwork page of our website, or on this week’s social media stories. But in case you missed it, today we’re sharing an in-depth look into this gorgeous new keepsake product that families are falling in love with.

Our new Linen Collection Boxes are the most versatile product in the studio. The boxes are filled with your favorite portraits printed to 7x10” and matted to 11x14”. Why so versatile? Here are a few ideas for how you can enjoy these portraits:

• Frame one as a gift for the grandparents.

• Frame one or two to display on a smaller wall in your home, or create a gallery wall with 6 or 8 matted portraits to fill a larger space like over the couch, in an entryway, or down a hallway.

• Keep some in the box and rotate your wall art throughout the year.

• Keep them all in the box to flip through like a modern day album.

The portraits are tucked into a gorgeous linen box, and you can customize the linen color AND the debossing text on the lid. If you decide to frame all of your portraits and you don’t know what to do with the box, simply save the box for your little one’s keepsakes that don’t fit into their baby book. It’s truly beautiful and so luxurious to the touch!

Another reason that these collection boxes are so popular with our families is because not every family is in their forever home yet, and they may not want to commit to large wall art when they’re not sure what will fit in their future space. The collection box is filled with safe sizes — 11x14 is a versatile size that fits in any space without feeling too big or too small! Plus, this product packs up small and travels well, just like our Heirloom Albums, which is perfect for families that will be moving at some point in the near future.

But really the best part?

These gorgeous prints are handcrafted with archival materials, meaning they will last for generations. You’ll be able to enjoy them on your walls now, putting a smile on your face every single day. Your kids will be able to enjoy them for years to come, and many years from now they will still be timeless and your grandkids will love looking through these portraits.

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Love these collection boxes and matted prints? Pin this image or any from the post above to save the inspiration!

After the Cake Smash : 11 Ideas for what to do with your cake smash photos

12 months have flown by, and in the blink of an eye your baby is 365 days old.  You're going to celebrate with a first birthday portrait session, of course.  But what will you do with the images AFTER the session?  

The last thing you want is to let them sit on a USB in a drawer somewhere, to forget about these moments that you captured of your baby's big smile, excitement, and curiosity.  You want to remember the dimples on their finger, their first few teeth poking through, and those tentative first steps.  But maybe you don't want to fill every wall of your home with cake smash pictures.  Read on for 11 ideas on what you can do with your cake smash photos after the session!

1.  Design birthday party invitations.

This is a perfect option for families that plan their cake smash at least 1.5-2 months before the baby's first birthday party.  Most families do a theme for the party, and we can incorporate that theme into the invitations.  From the shoot, to the gallery reveal, to holding your artwork in your hands, the entire turnaround time is typically one month from start to finish.  So plan ahead and get those invites printed with your photographer!

2.  Or, use the images for thank you cards!

Most families plan the cake smash close to the baby's actual birthday, so it's not always possible to send them out on party invitations.  This is where thank you cards are the perfect alternative -- we'll even leave a little blank space on the back for a heartfelt handwritten note!

3.  Hang them up at your party!

Many families like to share a canvas or a fine art album with their family & friends that come to celebrate at their baby's first birthday party.  Bring a little easel and set it up on the gift table, or find a spot on the wall!  After the party, move the canvas into the nursery for a playful pop of color on the walls!

4. Create a keepsake album.

Our fine art albums are my absolute favorite product that we offer, and they are the perfect way to enjoy every single image from your cake smash session.  This will quickly become your child's favorite book, and you'll spend hours curled up on the couch telling the story of their first birthday while they point out "mama", "dada", and "baby".  Bring it out every year on their birthday for a new tradition!

5. Complete your baby's first year book.

No baby book is complete without a first birthday.  Use your cake smash images to end with a celebratory note!

6. Give the grandparents their favorite gift EVER.

Grandparents love photos of their grandbabies.  Print a few 8x10s, or give them a small album from the session.

7.  Enjoy an accordion album!

Speaking of albums, our accordion albums are wonderful grandparent gifts!  These pocket-sized books hold nearly a dozen photos, and they are available in sets of three so that you can give a few away and keep one for yourself!

8. Tell a story with a storyboard collage.

A cake smash is all about the story -- weave 9 images together in a 3x3 grid and share all of the sweetest moments from your baby's session!

9. Hang a gallery wall in the nursery.

These playful images are the perfect addition to your nursery, and they're going to put a big smile on your face every time you see them -- even on the sleepless nights!  Hang them in a spot in your home where you'll enjoy them every single day, and where they'll bring a little bit of joy to your day!

10.  Do a "Smash & Splash", and hang them in the bathroom!

I love finishing our cake smash sessions with a splash in our adorable white clawfoot bathtub that is the perfect size for one-year olds.  Most babies love water, and they have so much fun splashing around.  We capture so many smiles and excited laughs during this portion of the session!  This makes great wall art for your bathroom, and it's definitely a talking piece that all of your houseguests will ask you about, sure to put a smile on everyone's face!
 

11.  Create a keepsake you'll add to every year with mementoes and letters for your child.

Next to our fine art albums, the wooden keepsake box is my favorite interactive product and the perfect way for you to enjoy your child's birthday memories.  Frame the photos, or display them in the little wooden easels that are tucked inside of the box.  Keep the box, and every year add little mementoes from your child's birthday -- a photo of them blowing out their candles, their birthday party invitation, a special card that they received.  Or, have friends and family write them a letter each year on their birthday and tuck them away inside of the box for an extra sweet surprise to gift them with when they turn 18!

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Let's get real for a minute here -- who has time for all of this?  

Time to design albums, party invites, thank you cards, and keepsake boxes?  That's where hiring a professional photographer comes in.  Let me do all the work for you, and you can sit back and enjoy your baby's birthday celebration, knowing that I will create the wall art, the heirlooms, and the thank you cards so that you don't have to worry about a thing!

When a Photographer Forgets to Print Her Own Photos.... Or, happy second anniversary!

I debated for awhile on the title of this post.  I wasn't sure if I should make it more about celebrating our second wedding anniversary, or keep it photography-related and tell you how it took me almost TWO YEARS to design & print our wedding album.

So I chose to do both.

You see, I'm just like you and every other person who has countless files of digital images from their own lives.  Tiny JPEGs sitting in a folder on their hard drive, rarely seen and never enjoyed.  And just like you, I had no time to print them.  

But wait, you're a photographer!  Your job is to print photos!

That's true.  I spend my weeks designing albums for other families, ordering boxes & boxes of prints from my photo lab, wrapping up custom birth announcements, and receiving more photo shipments in the mail than I can possibly count.  The UPS guy knows me by name, and I recognize the sound of the delivery truck pulling into my driveway like a dog recognizes their owner's car coming down the street.  

Yet it took me more than a year and a half to finally sit down and design our wedding album after our perfect wedding day in 2015.  Why?  Time.  Indecision.  Distractions.  Procrastination.  Not wanting to begin the task of narrowing down the hundreds and hundreds of photos in our gallery to choose a few favorites to feature in our album.  You know, all the same reasons it takes you forever to print your own photos, right?  

But I finally did it.  And now we have a leather-bound keepsake of our beautiful day surrounded by our closest family & friends on a brick patio with twinkly lights and rustling leaves overhead.  It is so perfect, and as Jeff & I celebrate our second wedding anniversary today, you can bet we'll be flipping through the pages of our wedding album to relive the day we said "I do."  

A huge thank you to Hope Taylor Photography for capturing our day so beautifully.  P.S.  I know you didn't offer albums to your clients two years ago, but I'm so happy that you do now because this is definitely a task that all newlyweds should leave to their photographer so that they can enjoy their heirloom albums right away!  

Print your photos, friends!  #printsnotpixels