Every year, I vow to "simplify, simplify, simplify" when creating my Christmas cards, but they always end up being "complicated, complicated, complicated". : )
This year, I DO vow to create a design that is easy. I swear on it. (and with all of the other crafty things I want to accomplish, i really think I'll have no choice to but to follow through on this vow! Things are trekking along veeery slowly in craftland.)
Last year, I had this idea that I had visualized to a T in my head. And I thought it would be fairly simple.
But of course it wasn't.
And it turned into the BIGGEST-headache-of-a-Christmas-card-ever.
Not only was the creating of the design complicated, but once I FINALLY had it to the printer, I was SOOO dissapointed with the print quality, I thought I would cry. I DID end up finding a better printer, and it looked fine in the end, but not perfect. (that's a whole other story, that i'll explain later: photo prints vs. press-printing)
But all of that said, it was worth it (once it was all over) and the card turned out exactly how I had imagined it. I was really, really happy with it.
I actually didn't even get this card out til the very END of January of THIS year.. haaaa.. It was doomed from the beginning. ;-)
But it felt more like a "year in review" kind of card, instead of a Holiday card, so it worked out in the end. (i hope!)
I've been meaning to share it here for the LONGEST and it got to the point that it wasn't really relevant anymore, so I was just like "forget it".. but NOW it's finally relevant! So I don't feel so weird posting it. ;-)
Here's the cover:
It turned into a "quad-fold" (which i think sounds funny) because of the nature of the photos etc.
Here's the back spread, minus the cover (if you can imagine it divided into 4 sections when accordian folded)....
(click to see larger)
And here's the inside spread, also divided into 4 panels...
(click to see larger)
My idea was to show our entire year of 2008 in photos. So I had this wrought iron old gate-type-thing I found at an antique store a long time ago just sitting in our back yard.. I never did anything with it, but it was perfect for this.
I strung yarn from one end to the other and clipped photos, little month placecards (going from January to December, from left to right in semi-linear order) and other odds and ends that I liked.. some things that went with each month, like little vintage birthday picks for birthday months, and vintage ornaments for december, etc.
The problems I encountered was that #1, I wouldn't be able to fit all of these images on just one 5x7 card, that is why it ended up being a quad-fold! (around 16 inches wide and around 5.75 inches tall, front and back).
And #2, I didn't realize how HARD it would be to take photos of photos. I had actually printed all of those photos on my home printer, arranged everything on the gate, and then took photos of the arrangement.
Once I opened the photos on the computer, I realized that the photos of the photos didn't look as good as I had hoped (i think i secretly knew this was going to happen, i mean really, i KNEW it was going to happen, but was in denial. lol.)
So, not only that, I actually had to make TWO arrangements.. b/c all of the months/photos wouldn't fit on the one gate. So I did January through June in one arrangement, then took my photos. THEN I took everything down, and did another arrangement of July through December.
I also realized, to get a good photo reproduction, I would have to take several photos of each arrangement and merge them in photoshop. (all you photographers out there are feeling my pain now, right?) If I had taken just one WIDE shot of the entire arrangement, the reproduction quality wouldn't be as good. Does that make sense? I am not sure why i'm explaining this in detail.. i just find it interesting the process of things...
SO, I had to merge those photos seamlessly so it looks like ONE big photo on the card.
Then, I had to photoshop in the actual individual photo files, on top of the printed photos.
LOL. ok, that makes sense to me. And only me, I'm sure! Let's just say, it's very tedious Photoshopping!
If you can imagine taking a photo of a photo, there was glare on alot of the photos. So I just photoshopped them back in there when I was laying out my design in Photoshop. Hopefully someone out there understood that and feels my pain. (again, this is why this thing was such a pain in my ars.)
Once I FINALLY finished the design, it was off to a printer, a NEW printer I'd never used before (i know, bad sign already.)
What I realized essentially is that press-printed products just don't reproduce as well as photo-prints when it comes to photographs. You can see all the little dots that make up the image with press-printed items. And since the little photos in this design, are indeed little, alot of times the fine detail in the faces, etc. were lost a tiny bit (albeit, only I would be picky about this. I think you graphic designers out there understand where I'm coming from. We're super-picky about print quality.)
So all that said, i think they turned out pretty good. The 2nd printer I used also printed on a slightly textured cardstock so it was pretty. (and I owe a HUGE Thank-you to Heather, a blog reader, that helped me out with finding a better printer! :-)
To my dismay, I couldn't find the actual printed card to take a photo of for you to see. I do hope I find my extra copies one day. After all I went through with it, something tells me I should frame one in a 14 carat gold frame. ;-)
So what are YOU doing for your holiday cards this year? I'd love to see! Link me up! Or if you've seen any inspiring holiday cards, link me up to those as well. :-)
I have an idea in my head that SHOULD be pretty simple for this year. Guess I should get my butt in gear right? It's almost the 3rd week of December. Yipes!
Now if I can just get a decent photo of the boys.
Now that's a whole other story! :-)



















