Celebrate this season of renewal, abundance and love with some new family traditions. Here are seven ideas:

1. Create a kindness wreath for your front door. Begin with a small, plain wreath. A week or two before Easter, distribute 10 or more ribbons in bright spring colors to each family member. Whenever someone reaches out to another in kindness during the week, another ribbon is tied onto the wreath.

2. Fill a wicker basket with handmade cards featuring cheerful messages and perhaps a small gift or two. Leave the basket anonymously on a friend’s doorstep, along with a request that they empty the basket and do the same for someone else.

3. Sit down with your children and each create a special collage or drawing that depicts what Easter means to each of you. The artwork can become a permanent part of your family’s Easter decorations. Before they go into storage at the end of the season, scan them or take a photograph so you can record the artwork in your family journal or scrapbook album.

4. Videotape (or audiotape) young children singing a fun seasonal song. These renditions of “Little Bunny Foo Foo” and “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” will be treasured for years to come. Make copies and send the tapes to family and friends whom you can’t be with on Easter.

5. When it’s time for your annual Easter get together, present each guest with a 6×6 or 8×8 sheet of cardstock and ask them to handwrite a message especially for the Easter holiday – perhaps ways that they are feeling joy, gratitude, or hopefulness. Snap a photo of each guest and create a simple (and quick) mini scrapbook album as a keepsake, featuring one page for each guest – with their photo and Easter message.

6. Make a Garden Journal. Cover an ordinary dime-store composition book or journal with spring patterned papers or magazine clippings of your favorite flowers. Now record the process of creating your family garden this year. Make sure to include pictures of each of you working in the soil. Don’t forget the journaling – and lots of flower pressings.

7. Buy or make handmade Easter greeting cards and send them to friends and family. Make a point to send out at least seven cards this season to people with whom you’d like to create a deeper friendship.

May these ideas for Easter family traditions spark more ideas that you can use throughout the year to celebrate the beauty that comes to us through friends and family.

About The Author
Susie Cortright is the founder of Momscape.com as well as Momscape’s Online Scrapbooking Magazine and Momscape’s Organic Living Channel – all of which celebrate the simple splendor in our everyday lives. Visit her site today to subscribe to her free weekly newsletters featuring fresh new ideas and inspiration.

Find a Location

Maybe your town has a nice park that has some wonderful fall foliage that you can set up a shot in. Or maybe there’s a place that is special to you that is also beautiful, like a waterfall or rock formation. No matter where you go to obtain the shot, try to scope it out ahead of time to make sure that it’s accessible, easy to maneuver, and shoot at easily.

Prepare Yourself

If the whole family is going to be in the photo, you will need a tripod, and possibly a wireless remote switch for your camera. Most cameras have a self-timer for these instances. Practice at home, beforehand, inside or out to get comfortable with using your equipment. You never know, your test run might yield that perfect photograph. Make sure our memory card is clear and ready to fill, and you should familiarize yourself with how your flash works, as well as the red-eye reduction feature. These are important things to consider when doing your own portraiture.

What to Wear

Think simple. Avoid busy patterns or graphics and try to match colors on everyone as much as possible. If you want a theme think about what you want your family to look like, and plan it out. Keep in mind that busy clothes will detract from the subject matter of the portrait.

Be a Poser

Look around the web at various family and child portraiture sites, and familiarize yourself with various poses for your photograph. This will help make you feel comfortable with doing your own session. You’ll gain inspiration and maybe even be able to come up with your own ideas from it.

If at First You Don’t Succeed

Try and try again. Whether you are taking your portaits in your home, in your back yard, at a local park , or on Main Street USA, the best bit of advice would be to keep shooting and having fun until you get that perfect picture to print and include in your holiday cards. If you get multiple shots that you love, you could go for a variety of prints or create an interesting storyboard for your cards. There are tons of options for printing and you are bound to find something that suits you and your family.