Katharine Elizabeth Photography {the blog}

I’ve been watching some lovely holiday cards and wood gallery mounts march out the door this week! So pretty! GAH!

It’s so satisfying to see the final product. Like matching the clean socks after doing the laundry and having no extra socks leftover when you’re done. Total satisfaction.

I thought I’d quick post a picture of two canvas gallery wraps that are headed to their new homes this week.

This is a 20×30 canvas gallery wrap (1 1/2 inches deep):

And this is an 11×14 (also 1 1/2 inches deep):

So, so pretty — I love them!

Now that the holidays are just around the corner, I started thinking about gifts for my own family members.

For my sister’s 4 kids, I decided a nice gift might be their own set of personalized thank you notes with envelopes.

For my 12-year-old niece, I did a “button” card.  I included her name on the back and ample writing space.

For the two teenagers, I did a “text” theme.

Because I am hip like that. 

I used pink for the girl and green for the boy. And even added an emoticon after their names on the back. 

See how hip?

And for the 10-year-old baseball lover, I did basic letter frames with a photo I took at the Twins stadium behind them.

I really like the way they turned out and I hope the kids feel grown-up having their own stationery for thanking school friends, family members, teachers, or anyone else important in their lives.

And I get to cross off 4 more lines on my holiday gift-buying list!

I seriously considered putting up some outside Christmas lights today.

I think there is something wrong with me.  Our kids aren’t even finished with their Halloween candy yet.

But I know one thing that contributed to my premature happy holiday mood were these lovely 5×5 press-printed, boutique circle holiday cards that I got to box up and deliver:

With images of each of the family’s cute kids on the front and a full family photo on the back, these cards are so clean and simple and perfect.

And the really fantastic part is that if you add a ribbon, they pull double-duty as holiday cards and two-sided ornaments that can be hung on the Christmas tree.

What a great, little gift for family and friends to receive in the mail.

Love it.  And what a gorgeous family.

I couldn’t help myself, so I took a couple of those pictures of my own two kiddos from last week and turned them into an updated set of thank you cards (up until now, I’ve been mailing friends and family outdated thank you notes with a picture on the front that would have them thinking my kids are still in diapers).

I used a ’boutique’ die-cut card this time (rather than a standard 5×7 rectangle) with a full image on the front and a partial image on the back, leaving enough white space to jot down a thank you message.

I love them. I have already mailed out 10. One of them was mailed to a person who I probably didn’t even need to thank for anything. My apologies to that person.

Ooh!, maybe I could print some apology notes next time and mail those out, too!…

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A quick note on the boutique die-cut cards: these can be cut into a handful of different shapes, including scalloped edges and other more ornate designs. The cards can also be done as 5×5s or even 3×3s, which are perfect for creating holiday ornament cards using a hole punch and ribbon. I’ll do a post on that in a bit.

My husband turned 35 this week.

I met him when he was 19.

Craziness!

“I am no longer part of the coveted 18-34 marketing demographic,” he told me the morning of his birthday. “No one cares what I think or buy anymore.” Ha.

This weekend, we are having a little party with some friends to help celebrate his jump into “round up to 40″ territory.  I’m not much of a party planner (not at ALL … no party planning skills whatsoever), but one thing I did do is make a little “guest book” where his friends can write down a birthday wish, if they’d like.

It’s just a simple 8.5×11 book with ten lay-flat pages.  Then I added pictures of my husband doing a few of his favorite things: spending time with the kids, watching Twins baseball, and goofing around at home. I also made sure to leave plenty of white space for friends to pen their messages.

I have no idea how it will go over, but my hope is that he will end up with a little keepsake of well wishes that he can look back on in the years to come.

And if that doesn’t work out, we can always use it as a really large coaster.