Behind the scenes of the Valentine Card photo shoot...

First, I spent a little time brainstorming the idea (I usually start in the first week or two of January)- since this is the 5th year of the card, it can take a little while to come up with the perfect idea. The only consistent element in the photo every is the yellow conversation heart that my dad had cut out of a piece of wood, I painted, and stamped. 

Poking around the various inspiration laden areas of the internet i.e. Pinterest, blogs, etc. I came up with an idea for a Parisian themed shoot for this year.  (the fact that I am in love with all things Paris, I mean, it wasn't too big of a leap to decide this idea was a go!). Dreams of the Eiffel Tower, berets, stripes, jaunty little mustaches, croissants, and other baked goods, bicycles, flowers, ok... back the real world. First (and pretty much the only priority was the Eiffel Tower), so I asked my dad if he had a large piece of wood that we could cut up and into the Eiffel Tower out of. He did. We scaled down a model I had on my desk. We drew it out, roughly. I used the jigsaw. Our Eiffel Tower was born.

3 coats of primer, Martha Stewart black craft paint, some free-handing painting and my 6 foot Eiffel tower was ready for its close up. (One of the big reasons, I wanted it out of wood was so I could hoard keep it in my studio as an art piece!)

For X's outfit I made a run to the DI aka thrift shop. Hit the jackpot with shirt and tie. The mustache was a leftover from his birthday party. Now on to the day of the shoot. I quickly drew out a few clouds and added some hearts to the tower with wire.

Time to set up the photo shoot (a step stool, towels on the ground, 3 cameras ready, etc. in order to shoot different angles), do a few practice shots in, then get the little man ready for his close up.

We were ready to go! One of the funniest parts of this shoot was that X's pants were too short (we pulled them down a little, he didn't like that) and his shirt was a little large (binder clip to the rescue), but it all came together. For one thing, this is a family effort! My best pal Kristen makes a wonderful photo shoot mainly because she knows how picky I am and gets my vision for the whole thing. We work so well together that these shoots even if there are scene changes only take an hour or so. I always love when she captures the actual part of me, shooting the photos. They always crack me up! Here are a couple that she took:

photo by Kristen taken with my iphone

photo by Kristen taken with my iphone

photo by Kristen taken with my iphone

Now the whole scene is setup by our front door inside the house and I really love it! As always the hardest part was choosing the photos, photo-editing and creating the card. I hope you enjoyed seeing a little bit of how this year's card came together :)