Want a sweet, fun and unique way to hang up all of those baby announcements, and holiday photo cards? When decluttering my home I discovered a way to display everyone’s beautiful pictures by hanging them up with miniature clothespins.

To do this, YOU’LL NEED: 2 thumbtacks, string, scissors, photos or photo cards, mini clothespins

• Choose your photos and/or photo cards.
• Depending on the amount of cards and photos you have, estimate how much space you will need between the thumbtacks and then use that to determine how much string to cut.
• After you have placed the thumbtacks in the wall tie the ends of the string on each side.
• Lastly, hang up your photos and cards up with the miniature clothespins.

Do you often forget people’s birthdays?

In honor of my birthday and everyone who’s birthday is today, Happy Birthday, and here’s a list of things you can do so you won’t forget anymore birthdays this year.

1) Google Birthdays. Google has a feature that allows you to add a birthdays section to your home page. The service is free and an easy reminder since you’ll see it as soon as you open up your Google personal page.

2) Yahoo Calendar. Like Google, you can add in special dates to your online calendar for free.

3) Organize your greeting cards. Get a stylish organizer to organize cards for friends and family. The one I had from GfDG Studio is great since it has monthly tabs with space to write their names.

4) Check out RealSimple.com for more great ideas to save you from forgetting another birthday!
 

Kodak Gallery has great ideas for gifts submitted by customers. One idea I loved involved creating a mini photo book for a baby shower.

Photo from: KodakGallery

All you have to do is ask guests to submit photos to you online and then create the book through their website. Request submission of photos on your baby shower invites. Then, when you get them add their pictures with space for guests to write little words of advice for the mom-to-be.

I was watching my favorite reality TV family the other night and got a great idea for a birthday party. On “Jon and Kate Plus 8,” the family gathered together to do dress up night. The kids got a kick out of it and so did I which is what inspired this dress up party entry.

1) Decide on a theme. There is a whole lot of different things you can do when planning a dress up party. From fireman and police outfits to cowboy and cowgirl attire, your birthday girl or boy and their guests will have a good time dressing up.

2) Ask guests to bring their own outfits. There are a number of activities you can do with this. You can have a fashion show, or a best dressed contest. And kids will have fun trying on each others outfits.

3) Pictures. Have your camera handy. If you have a instant camera such as Polaroid, take pictures of your little guests all dressed up that they can take home with them as favors.

4) Mirrors. Make sure you take out all your mirrors so kids can see how they look from head to toe.

5) Invitations. Choose one of these invitations to match with the theme you chose for a fun, dress up party!

Cowgirl Lasso

Fire Engine

Now that it’s officially summer, what are you doing to beat the heat? Though I love these summer months, I could do without the hot, sleepless nights. That’s why I was excited when I watched ABC’s, “The View” and saw various ways that to keep cool this summer. Here are a few gadgets that was on their show that you can purchase for cool, comfortable summer days and nights.

1) The Chill Misting Fan from Brookstone.

2) Chillow or a chilled pillow from The Comfort Store will keep you cool at night.

3) And to keep your back, buns and anything you else you want cool, LavaBuns is a seat cushion that can be cooled when it’s hot and warmed when it’s cold outside.

If all else fails, grab an ice cream cone, watch a movie, or stay indoors when you want to take a break for the summer heat.

Whether you’re barbecuing, watching the fireworks display, having a picnic or staying in, here’s hoping you stay cool, take lots of pictures and make tons of memories. If you’re going to take photos of the fireworks this year, you’ll want to pick an ideal spot, choose a wide-angle lens and keep your hand steady. For more tips check out BudgetTravel. Their article on Fireworks Photography is sure to bring out the professional photographer in you. In honor of tomorrow’s special holiday, we at Tiny Prints want to wish you all a safe, fun 4th of July.

Have an aspiring cowboy in your family? Here’s few tips on how to plan a cowboy birthday party that they’ll get a kick out of.

1) Invitations. After you’ve gone over the guest list, choose or have your child use their favorite invitation. Here are some adorable ones from Tiny Prints.

2) Decorations. Sites such as Oriental Trading sells fun decorations such an inflatable cactus and gold nugget bubble gum to give as favors. They even have a pinata shaped like a cowboy boot!

3) Activities. Purchase inexpensive cowboy hats, vests, bandannas and other fun costumes for the kids to play dress up. Play pin the tail on the horse. Or how about playing pass the cowboy hat to a Country Western music CD. The person who ends up with the hat when the song stops wins!

4) Food. Barbecue goes best with a cowboy themed party. Serve hamburgers, hot dogs, corn bread and baked beans. End with a cowboy shaped cake and root beer floats!

One of my favorite parenting blogs is The Goody Blog, which is written by the wonderful editors at Parents magazine. This blog is a great resource for new products and tips; and it is a great way to get your daily Parents magazine fix between issues.

Check out some of my favorite posts from the month of May:

-The ManBabies highlighted in the post Who’s Your Daddy are both disturbing and funny -I love to play with my food (yes, still), which is why I loved this post
-First 90210, then New Kids on the Block, and now Fraggle Rock is making a comeback! All I can say is goody!
-These boxes from Pottery Barn are a perfect match to our Chrysanthemum baby shower invitations and thank you cards
-Silhouette prints are classic and traditional. Check out the beautiful necklaces in this post.
-Do your kids hate bath time? If so, then read about the Lil Rinser. This product is genius!

Also, be sure to check out the post on Tiny Prints new line of graduation announcements. A big thanks to Taryn at Parents for thinking of us!

By guest blogger: Rich Bucich

This is the second installment of tips to help you take better photographs of babies.
If you read my last post, hopefully you have a greater understanding of how your camera’s auto-focus works and the impact of good light on achieving a sharp, clear photograph. There’s much more to the equation however, and understanding the settings on your camera will give you a distinct advantage.

Good light provides a faster shutter speed for the camera. The faster the shutter speed, the more the movement will be frozen and “camera shake” will be minimized. In poor lighting, your camera will try to speed up the shutter speed by adjusting settings which may degrade the quality of your photo.

The camera will likely take the following steps to speed up the shutter:

• The camera will open the aperture (AKA f/stop) - this will let more light through the lens but will also require much more accurate focusing. The area achieving sharp focus may be very narrow, i.e. tip of nose is sharp, eyes out of focus. The term is called “depth of field.”

• The camera may increase the ISO* - a higher ISO will allow for faster shutter speeds but can severely degrade the quality of the photo. For best results with “point & shoot” type cameras, keep the ISO at 200** or below. Digital SLR camera will be much more tolerant in this regard, often being able to shoot in excess of 800 ISO with acceptable results.

• The camera may turn on the flash - the flash is your friend, but automatic settings will often create harsh shadows or over-exposed areas if too close to your subject.

*ISO stands for International Standards Organization and is essentially a measurement of light sensitivity.
**Higher ISOs settings may be required under extreme low light situations such as parties and events where shutter speed needs to be maximized. In these cases, the additional sharpness may trump any graininess. We don’t recommend high ISOs in baby photography because the skin tone can be severely degraded.

If manual settings are overwhelming, you will have a huge increase in your photo success rate if you just focus on providing as much diffused ambient light as possible.

Our Tiny Prints website also has many effective tips with examples which may be helpful as well. Please register and post a comment if you have any questions.

By guest blogger: Rich Bucich

This is the first installment of my tips to help you take better photographs of your baby. Over the next few weeks, I will be highlighting individual issues that will have a dramatic effect on the quality of your photographs. In this episode, I’ll go over auto-focus and how it is impacted by light.

Baby portraits are the most challenging photographs to take. At Tiny Prints, we receive a large number of pictures from you everyday and hear all of your struggles and frustrations first hand.

As a new parent, catching the perfect pose is as much about luck as it is about planning. The good news? There are a lot of things that you can do to help your odds without a lot of effort.

• First of all, the auto-focus feature on your camera uses contrast not distance to focus. This is why you can shoot through glass at distant objects.

• Secondly, in poor lighting, your camera may have difficulty finding focus or focus on an unintended area. For example, a sleeping baby’s face has little contrast which can confuse a camera. This is why you might have a well focused blanket but a blurry baby in your photographs.

• Thirdly, poor lighting includes most indoor photography, even in seemingly well lit rooms.

• While I will go into more detail at a later date, remember that the importance of focus accuracy increases as light decreases.

If you keep these issues in mind, you can see why light becomes one of the most important aspects of good baby photography. The same rules apply for many other types of photography, however. Our Tiny Prints website also has many effective tips with examples which may be helpful as well.

Leave me a comment if you have any questions and stay tuned for Episode II.