DIY Christmas Photo Backdrop Idea

Wow, Christmas is almost here, and I’m just now sharing this with y’all!  Forgive me for being so late!  I’m guessing some of y’all might be in the same boat as I was in this last week.  Meaning I hadn’t taken our annual family photo, which in turn means I hadn’t ordered our Christmas cards yet.  Why do we do these things to ourselves, right?  Well, I figured that I had better stop procrastinating  and figure something out quick so we could get our cards out before the big day.  Since this was a spur of the moment, DIY idea, instead of the whole family, my son gets to be the focus of this year’s Christmas card.  He’s much cuter than the rest of us anyways, so you’re welcome family.  😉 

I ended up running around the house, grabbing a few Christmas items that I thought would make good props for a cute card, got my little one dressed, and we all went to the backyard for a mini photo session.  

Here’s what I found, along with a few tips to help you if you are thinking about DIY’ing your photos too!

Get the look! (Affiliate links used.)

Photo Taking Tips (See photos below as examples.)

• Get a real or faux tree to use as part of the backdrop.  It creates a festive scene as is, but having your subjects decorate while you photograph them will give you a variety of shots to choose from.
• Use multicolored strand lights as a prop.  They stand out even if they aren’t plugged in.
• No snow?  Use faux snow instead!  Plenty of stores sell faux snowballs, and snowflakes this time of year, and they don’t cost a lot either.  Have your subjects interact with them by blowing the snow out of their hands, throwing it up in the air, or having a fun faux snowball fight.
• If you have little ones, or want to confine your subjects into one space, lay down a blanket.  Pick one with pattern to make it stand out even more.
• If you are photographing the subject(s), move in and out of the space to get close-up shots, and wide angled shots.  You’re bound to capture some pretty good moments!
• Edit your photos in Lightroom, or Photoshop if you have them.  If you don’t have access to either google “photo editor” and you will find a ton of free sites to use.

Here are a few of these tips played out during our photo session.

Subject decorating the tree.

Subject playing in the “snow”.

Using large multicolored bulb lights as a prop.

My son and I had such a fun time with this little shoot, and it only took us about 20 minutes from setup to take down, and we were able to do it in our own backyard so I was able to get to work editing and picking out our cards soon after.  It looks like we are ordering them just in time too, since we will get them around the 21st of December.  We looked all over, and in the end we chose to purchase our cards from Tiny Prints due to the amount of cards needed.  We’ve used them a few times over the years, and they have always provided great service.  Other places to consider ordering cards from are Minted, Shutterfly, Vistaprint, and even Walgreens!

I hope these tips help you with your next holiday photo session!

-Iris