I was hired to help style some ads for Minted’s new Holiday cards and I thought it would be fun to show some Behind the Scenes. (BTW have you seen the new Minted Holiday Cards. They are Gorgeous!) Minted is such a neat company because their designs are crowd sourced and voted on. How Democratic! right? Plus I love women run businesses and Mariam Naficy is a powerhouse. I find her really inspiring. Anyway here are some shots of a couple of the completed ads.

The process was so easy because both the art director and the client were so great to work with.

First I met with Suzanne Shade, the art director and she discussed the layout and what they were looking for. Then I went to work collecting all sorts of goodies from my supply closet. (It feels so good to actually use all those pretty things I bought for no reason!) I also stopped by the Ribbonrie and Fantastico to buy ribbons and knickknacks for styling. Here is a picture of a small part of the props I brought.

The shoot was at XYZ Studios in San Francisco and besides Suzanne, Miriam and Annie Clark were there from Minted. Using the cards they had picked out we worked on different arrangements until we were happy with how it looked. My favorite part is adding little embellishments. A little ribbon here, a dangly thing there, until it looks just right. We basically experimented with several adjustments until everyone was happy. Meanwhile the amazing photographer Eva Kolenko and her assistant worked on getting the lighting just right. From there we just made little tweaks until the photograph was perfect. Below is a picture of the color test.

Somehow some party hats made it into my stash so we of course took some photos during down time.