A couple of posts back I went through how to make your own book. This time we are still standing by the press, but instead of books I will take a closer look at how you can make your own invitations, thank you cards and cards for just about any occasion.

So how do you get the right shot for the card?

Thanks to kodakgallery.ca and similar offerings of other companies getting the photo onto the card and printed is the easy part. For me the fun and challenging part is getting the right photo.

↑ Photo made for baby shower thank you cards.

First, give the card's occasion some thought. What is special about the occasion? Is it a birthday card? What's special about the birthday boy/girl? If it's a party invitation, what kind of party is it for? For an afternoon tea party invitation, I made some photos of the tea mugs that would be used at the party. Making a thank you card? Think about what you're saying thank you for. For a party thank you card, I put together a collage using all the pictures of the guests and put that on the card.

↑ Using google's picasa to create a photo collage. It's a great, free tool.

When you have an idea of the look that would suit and underline the occasion, then it's time to set up a shoot. Alternatively, you can look through your existing photos to see if you have the right shot already.

↓ Rubber duck photo shoot setup for a baby shower thank you card.

For the rubber ducky shoot I tried a couple of angles to see what worked best. This included taking them for a 'swim' in the sink and lining them up with the beautiful blue sky and white clouds as backdrop. For both scene I added extra light with two flashguns (Nikon SB900 and SB600) triggered with the Nikon SU800.

Easy Peasy


Putting the card together is as easy as 1-2-3-4.

↑ Selecting the right template (from kodakgallery.ca).

1 Select the card template/design that best suits the occasion

2 Upload the photos and drag and drop it into the image-slots.

↓ Drag and drop the image and then add your personalized text (from kodakgallery.ca).

3 Write the text needed to complete the card (from kodakgallery.ca).

4 Proof the card a couple of times. Again if you have the opportunity to have someone else go over the card that's great. Even though it's not that complicated, there is always the chance that you 'mesed' something up. Hit add to cart, check out and you're done. With kodakgallery.ca you have the option of picking up the cards @ your local Future Shop instead paying for shipping to your home.

↑ Select envelope color, number of cards and add your finished product to the cart (from kodakgallery.ca).

Now go spread some card-joy!

For the technically interested: The rubber ducky shots were made with the Nikon D700 and Nikon 105mm f2.8 VR Micro lens. Both were lit with two speedlights positioned left and right of the ducks bounced of a bright ceiling and triggered with the Nikon SU800. The sky-shot was made by propping the duckies up on a box to get the right piece of the sky in the frame. The sky was later slightly darkened in Lightroom using local adjustments. Without the additional flash-light it would have been next to impossible to get a good exposure of the duckies and the sky at the same time.

For the sink-shots the sink was filled with water and the white of the sink was overexposed slightly to get a nice contrasty background to the yellow color of the ducky. In one of the shots the ducky was sprayed with water to drive home the wet-duck look. The bathroom light was off to avoid two different light sources making whitebalance correction more difficult afterwards.