I am starting to think about our Christmas Card. Too early you say? Aaaw, then I guess you don’t know me…I am obsessive when it comes to Christmas cards. I am considering going to even greater lengths this year. I have been thinking of trying to do a stop motion video. Stop motion videos are all the rage as you can see from my previous posting on Save the Date videos,; quite a few stop motion videos made the cut. So I ‘ve been scouring the web in search of an idea which is not too hard to do for our Christmas card. I thought I’d share with you some of the best ones I’ve come across. Who knows, maybe you’re as crazy as I am and I can inspire you to do an over the top Christmas Card using stop motion this year. Hey, if people can do it for their Save the Date cards, then why not for their Christmas cards?
This one is called The Human Skateboard.
This one is a Thanksgiving themed one:
This video is an old favorite, seen millions of times on You Tube:
But it is not as famous as this one, seen over 13 million times on You Tube:
It is called The Last Laugh
The only stop motion video for Christmas that made the cut is this one which is an ad:
Many of these videos I discovered thanks to Smashing Magazine with an article on their favorite stop motion videos. However, they also have some tutorials on how to do stop motion videos and it looks very tricky. I hate to admit it, but I think it is over my head. I think I need to wait until my son and my nephew are in college. One wants to study animation, the other wants to study film, so I’ll wait until I can hire one of them. In the meantime, if anyone does anything like this for their Christmas card, or for any other occasion, please let me know because I would love to feature it.
I found some great 4th of July Cards which are unique and inspirational. None of these are commercial cards by the way, all are people’s individual creative efforts.
This digital collage is by Pamela027 on Flickr, it is so creative and inspiring.
I saw this on an ad for http://www.pasanellaandson.com, but I don’t think they created it. If so, my apologies to whomever made it for not giving you credit, it is a fabulous 4th of July message. I love words spelled out by sparklers, they are not that hard to do with a long exposure, yet so fun and creative.
This is creative 4th of July collage was again posted by Pamela027 on Flickr
This card was sent out as a shout out for the 4th of July by Daniel at DanielDunlapphoto.com
This digital art of a flag swirling around was done by Leoncillo Sabino and posted on Flickr.
This great dog (is it a basset Hound?) 4th of July card was also posted on Flickr by Komissarov
Oh why not post this one from OliviaMunn.com..she’s in the spirit of the 4th.
A 4th of July photo of a flag in front of the Brooklyn Bridge posted by Houry Photography on Flickr.
As the You Tube generation starts to get married, a few wedding traditions are begining to shift. Some couples are now opting for the Save the Date Video to show off their creative sides. The video is then posted on You Tube or Vimeo and the link is sent around to their friends and family. I thought I’d post my top ten here to spur couples’ creative juices to think of making their own. A word of warning: video is a tough medium to master and it can easily bomb. It takes a lot of talent to make something that people want to spend time watching. Video is unforgiving, if you get it wrong, it’s a little painful. I found that the worst videos have a few things in common. One mistake is if the bride and groom try their hand at acting. Good acting is great, bad acting is…not. I found that videos which were too long were also less successful. These videos may have a great idea and a great concept, but they need severe editing.
Here are my top ten Save the Date Videos; they get two thumbs up. They may not all be worthy of an Oscar, but they are all charming, sweet and creative. As I watched the couples in these videos, all I could think of is what a fun, wacky or lovely couple they were, and I wish I could see them get married. That’s the point right?
In the following video, the couple is acting as if they were in a Charlie Chaplain movie. I know I said that acting is a mistake, but since it’s in the style of a silent movie it works. Not speaking may be the rule I was searching for actually. It helps that the bride and groom are incredibly charming and the film style is wonderful,
The following video is simply too long. But it is so creative and well done that I almost don’t mind in spite of it. Almost. It is inspired by the viral video called “Her Morning Elegance“.
Like the previous video, this video is done in stop motion. But this one is shorter and sweeter and done with a “tie the knot” theme.
This video is great. I can’t embed it on the site, but it’s well worth the effort of clicking on this link to see it.
I just love this! Like many of these, this is mimicking a you tube viral video. This is a take-off on Where in the World is Matt? If you haven’t seen it, you are one of the few. It has had well over 30 million viewers. This video is almost as charming. I feel like I would like the couple a lot.
This one is very clever and well done. I love how they wrote all of the wedding date information in chalk on the sidewalk.
This is fabulous, one of the best save the date videos I’ve seen! It is based on the famous viral video, Deadline post-it stop motion. It also uses stop motion animation and, sadly, I am unable to embed it on this site, so you will need to go to this link to see it.
It’s worth it! Go!
I guess wedding trailers are common wedding announcement theme in videos, because there are lots of them. This one is a take on the King Arthur Movie. It is by the far the bravest and most outlandish one I’ve seen. It’s very dorky-funny, but it makes me laugh because they take it so seriously. I would love to see what kind of wedding they had.
Here is another one of the better movie-themed videos. It’s a take off on Mr and Mrs. Smith. It’s slick.
I know I missed lots of great videos. Please let me know of any you come across any others which are as good so I can do another posting of them. I had a blast doing the research on this posting. I only wish I had been to all of these weddings. They must have been incredibly creative. I love a wedding which is creative…more on off-beat weddings in a later post…
Here are a few of the best cards Mother’s Day Cards I could find. These were actually made for these people’s mothers or wives; none of these were commercial cards. This is what makes them so great, the time and effort going into them are enough to make any mother smile. These are good inspiration for images, if you need the sentiments to go inside your homemade card, you can find ideas in my previous blog postings. In my next posting I will post 15 funny mother’s day quotes.
The following card was made by a guy named Danny for his wife, Bess. She was three months pregnant for mother’s day and he had been taking pictures of her growing belly. You can see it at www.dannyandbess.com. I bet Danny’s a great Dad to little Punchy.
Call me crazy, but my guess is that this Mother’s Day card is from a teenager. He remembered!
www.flickr.com/photos/skewgee/144964022/
This must have been from a Dad to his wife. It may not be the most sentimental Mother’s Day Card I’ve ever seen, but it’s the thought that counts. And, hey, it’s a sweet great photo. I’d be psyched to get this.
www.flickr.com/photos/tine05/3518751510/
Yes, she did receive this vacuum for mothers day. Isn’t she lucky? And then her husband took a photo of her with it for posterity. Truth be told, she actually did ask for the vacuum, and it is a fabulous photo, so I’d say she had a pretty good day.
This card was actually made as a birthday card for this woman’s mother. I thought it was a good idea though for a mother’s day card as well.
www.flickr.com/photos/evaxebra/3268050977/
For the following card, gardener Arthur Darragh used 480 plants in flats to spell out “Happy Mother’s Day” on lawn in the Livingston section of Staten Island
This is a somewhat less sweet mother’s day sentiment. It was probably done to get ratings on YouTube instead of a thank you for their mother. But it’s funny nonetheless.
I’m absolutely certain I will be getting an amazing mother’s day card like these, full of forethought and love. I hope you do too.
I leave you with a quote about women. While it doesn’t really pertain to mother’s day, I love it anyway.
Welcome to HoHumCards.com, formerly Merry Christmas From. Here you can check out creative cards, submit your own unique creation, and get creative card-making tips. Learn more about HoHumCards.
by Karen Robert
