It's no secret that our expectations about what we can achieve often out weight the real results. While flicking through a magazine I saw an add with adults shaping letters, and I thought, "my kids could do that for a Christmas card." Well, they did... sort of. The N is barely there, the O is cute enough, the E requires imagination, and the L which I thought would be the easiest turned out to look torturous. It all looks better when you squint!Why the colour-scheme? Well, Noel means 'Christmas' in French, and I thought the color scheme of pink clothes on black carpet would seem Parisian... ok and because we have a dark carpet and Mimi rarely wears anything other than pink...!
Mimi also made a J and Lotti a Y so we could spell out JOY on another collage I'll use for Christmas cards. Placed side by side the 3 photos, with one child on each end, and the two of them together, made a sweet ensemble.
As I'm typing I'm becoming tempted to organize another photo shoot and collect the whole alphabet, and then we could make personalised cards for everyone.
The result is far from perfect, but what craft project ever is. The kids had fun, and so did I. We managed to clear a spot on our black carpet, dress-up in pink and take the 6 photos in only slightly more time than my eternal 15 minute challenge. The digital collage with Picasa (the free digital photo-editor) took only minutes more. If your kids seem interested in getting involved, I highly recommend it for a bit of a laugh - but please - be careful when climbing up to take the shots!
As far as family photos go, I'm thrilled with the results... maybe me and Happy-Hubby could spell out some of the remaining letters, for a true family photo... hmmm... as a minimum a V would be good, then we could spell LOVE, and at the end of it all what more do you want at NOEL-time than JOY and LOVE?
