You want to adorn your walls and shelves with photos of the things, places, and people that you love. And if you have kids, they’re obviously going to be high up on this list. But taking the perfect photos of your kids can be difficult. From hyperactive infants that never want to stand still, to moody teenagers that won’t smile for a family photo, snapping the perfect still can be difficult. 

In this article, we’ve got some tips on how to take photos of your kids that you can cherish forever.

Professional photos

One option is to pay and leave it to the pros. A lot of professional photographers are used to family photoshoots, so they’re skilled at getting kids to cooperate with photos and capturing good poses from them. You can get a wide variety of shots this way, both posed and candid. Of course, there are the costs to consider, but it can be well worth it for the great pictures you get out of it.

Candid photos

If it’s hard to get your kids to pose for a photo, then capture them while they’re doing something they enjoy. This means you won’t have to work at getting them to cooperate. Photograph them doing a jigsaw or while watching their favorite movie. Or go for action shots and photograph them running around the yard, playing with their siblings, or jumping on the bed. You might get a lot of blurry shots if you’re just using your smartphone, but keep snapping and you’ll eventually strike gold.

Draw their attention

If you really want a photo of a young child looking perfectly at the camera, then you might be in for a challenge. For babies and infants, you could try holding a toy or their favorite food over the camera to get them looking in the right direction. For slightly older children, you might need to get more creative. You could simply ask if they can see their reflection in the camera lens, or be more imaginative and tell them there are fairies in the lens, or whatever would pique their interest. 

Hand the camera over

The selfie generation has arrived, and kids are practically born knowing how to use smartphones and tablets these days. Flip your phone into selfie mode and hand it over to them. They’ll be curious about their reflection on the screen and they’ll soon figure out how to snap photos of themselves. Just be prepared to scroll through hundreds of selfies on your phone. 

Once you’ve got the perfect photos for your wall, bring them into our shop in Clemmons, NC for our expert custom framing services. Get in touch if you have any questions about how custom framing works.

You want to adorn your walls and shelves with photos of the things, places, and people that you love. And if you have kids, they’re obviously going to be high up on this list. But taking the perfect photos of your kids can be difficult. From hyperactive infants that never want to stand still, to moody teenagers that won’t smile for a family photo, snapping the perfect still can be difficult.

Professional photos

One option is to pay and leave it to the pros. A lot of professional photographers are used to family photoshoots, so they’re skilled at getting kids to cooperate with photos and capturing good poses from them. You can get a wide variety of shots this way, both posed and candid. Of course, there are the costs to consider, but it can be well worth it for the great pictures you get out of it.

Candid photos

If it’s hard to get your kids to pose for a photo, then capture them while they’re doing something they enjoy. This means you won’t have to work at getting them to cooperate. Photograph them doing a jigsaw or while watching their favorite movie. Or go for action shots and photograph them running around the yard, playing with their siblings, or jumping on the bed. You might get a lot of blurry shots if you’re just using your smartphone, but keep snapping and you’ll eventually strike gold.

Draw their attention

If you really want a photo of a young child looking perfectly at the camera, then you might be in for a challenge. For babies and infants, you could try holding a toy or their favorite food over the camera to get them looking in the right direction. For slightly older children, you might need to get more creative. You could simply ask if they can see their reflection in the camera lens, or be more imaginative and tell them there are fairies in the lens, or whatever would pique their interest.

Hand the camera over

The selfie generation has arrived, and kids are practically born knowing how to use smartphones and tablets these days. Flip your phone into selfie mode and hand it over to them. They’ll be curious about their reflection on the screen and they’ll soon figure out how to snap photos of themselves. Just be prepared to scroll through hundreds of selfies on your phone.

Once you’ve got the perfect photos for your wall, bring them into our shop in Clemmons, NC for our expert custom framing services. Get in touch if you have any questions about how custom framing works.

When you think of family photographs being used to decorate the walls of a family home, what comes to mind is usually a thoroughly planned picture of the family posed nicely in a line or with the parents at the back and the kids in the front. But this kind of rigorously planned and posed photography doesn’t often capture the personality of the family and individuals being photographed. This is where candid photographs can offer up something a little different.

What is a candid photo?

A candid photo is one that is not posed or planned. The subject may not even be aware you are taking photos, such as snapping shots of your kids while they’re happily playing in the backyard.

Other times, the subjects may be aware of the photographer but still don’t know when photos are being taken. For example, a wedding day photographer often acts as a fly-on-the-wall during the ceremony or the reception, taking photos of people happily chatting, drinking, or wiping a tear away.

Either way, the idea is that the subject does not change their behavior for the photograph, they are simply acting natural doing whatever they are doing.

Candid photos vs. posed photos

Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of candid photos compared to posed photos.

When people complain about not being photogenic, it’s often because they feel uncomfortable in front of the camera. Someone might have a nice smile when they’re laughing with friends, but point a camera at them and it suddenly becomes an awkward and forced smile, instead. Candid photography eliminates this because you’re photographing natural behavior rather than a forced pose.

However, candid photography can still lead to unflattering poses. It can be difficult to time a photograph just right when someone is moving, talking, and laughing naturally. Candid photography can involve a lot of luck and perseverance to achieve the perfect shot, especially if you’re photographing hyperactive children or animals.

But the best thing about candid photos is that they reflect people’s (or animals’) real personality and uniqueness by capturing them acting naturally or in their natural environment. You can capture an image of someone having fun, working hard, pursuing a hobby they love, or the loving look in someone’s eye when they look at their kids or partner. Whatever kind of candid photo you’re taking, the results are real, not staged.

Great candid photos are perfect for custom framing and hanging on the walls in your home, or even to be given as a gift. If you’re interested in custom framing services around Clemmons and Winston Salem, NC, then contact Tanglewood Art and Frame or visit us in-store.

Most of us take a lot more photos than we used to since we have a pretty high-quality camera with us at all times thanks to smartphones. But these photos often get left on our devices and barely looked at again. Printing some of your best smartphone photos can allow you to frame your favorite moments and hang them on the wall or display them on shelves in your home.

You want to make sure that these photos look good, so what are your options for printing them? Let’s compare two options of printing your photos yourself at home or having them professionally printed in-store.

Home printing

You may be able to print your photos at home using your regular printer with some specific photo paper to produce a slightly sturdier and better-quality end result. Or you can get better results by purchasing a quality photo printer. Obviously the second option is costlier, but could give you much better-looking photos.

Generally speaking, you will need to adjust some of the settings on your printer or your laptop/computer to get the best results, which may require good knowledge or research into photography and printing. If you’re printing photos regularly, then this extra investment in terms of time spent learning the tools and money spent on a new printer can be worth it.

However, if you’re just printing a few photos a year, then it will be more cost and time-effective to simply choose between getting your photos printed professionally in-store or compromising on quality by printing your photos at home on good-quality photo printing paper.

Professional printing

Various stores offer printing services, from general stores and supermarkets to more specialist printing companies. The specialists are likely to be more costly but also produce better results, while general stores may be cheaper and more convenient but with slightly lower quality. Overall, it can be much more convenient to rely on professional, in-store printing rather than having to mess about with your own printers, cartridges, and paper to figure out how to print good-quality photos at home.

Another option is to use an online printing service, which will print your photos and mail them to you. All you have to do is send in digital files of the photos you want printing, plus information about the number and size of prints required.

When your photos are ready for the wall, come to Tanglewood Art and Frame to have them professionally custom framed, making sure you present them nicely in your home. Contact us for custom framing services around Advance, Winston Salem, Clemmons, Lewisville, and Mocksville, NC.

For many people, their pets are just as much a part of the family as any person, so they deserve to be a part of the family portrait or have their own frames on the wall.Whether you’re buying a gift for a friend or family member with a beloved pet dog or want to celebrate your own dog through custom framing, then we’ve got some ideas for the best things you can frame.

A dog portrait

A simple photo of your dog looking adorable would make a great addition to your walls or shelves. Choose a favorite photo to have custom framed or even book a doggy photoshoot to get professional shots of your pet. If you’re looking for a gift for a friend, then one of these photoshoots could be the perfect option. 

A painting of your dog

Instead of a photo, you could opt to commission someone to draw a painting of your dog, which would usually be based on a photo you provide for them. This allows you to enjoy an artistic interpretation of your pup in whatever style or colors you’d like. Or you could leave it up to the artist to decide these details. You can even commission funny dog portraits like the uniformed dogs here.

Pawprints

Let your dog leave a mark in your home by framing a print of their pawprints. Simply dip the bottom of your dog’s paw in paint (make sure it’s safe for dogs!) and gently place their paw down onto a piece of paper or card. You can do this for one or more paw and can choose whatever colors you’d like. Properly wash the paint off their paws afterward. Or, instead of paint, you can have their paw imprinted in clay or a similar material.

Their collar and tags

Want to remember how cute your dog was as a tiny puppy? Save their old collars to display inside a frame when they move up to a bigger size. You can keep their tags on the collars too with their name displayed. If they have multiple collars as they get bigger, then you can frame them together, each circled inside the next.

Give the gift of custom framing to yourself or a loved one to commemorate a family dog. Contact Tanglewood Art and Frame to find out more about our custom framing services around Winston Salem and Clemmons, NC.

When it comes to decorating your walls or shelves with artwork and frames, why not get your kids involved to add some more fun and personality to your décor? And you can enjoy a fun, family activity as well by creating something together. Here are some simple ideas for fun, creative activities you could do with your kids to make colorful creations for the walls of their bedroom or other places in the house.

Handprints

Most kids will love the idea of getting messy and sticking their hands in paint without getting in trouble for it! Handprints in a picture frame make for a simple yet effective aesthetic. You may want to do this with your baby’s hand and footprints to look back at how small they were. And if you have more than one child, they can stamp their handprints in size/age order. 

If you’re willing to take the risk, then colorful handprints can also make a fun and eye-catching decoration for the walls of the nursery or kids’ room. Draw out a border around the room in the middle of the wall and have your kids fill it with handprints! Look for non-toxic paint so that it’s safe for babies and infants, or you could even make your own safe paint.

Decorated frames

Good-quality and nice-looking frames don’t have to be your typical stained wood or sleek metal. Liven them up by letting your kids loose with the paints or crayons. This is a good way to personalize a baby photo or a photo of your kids playing together. They could draw or paint their art onto a plain frame or you could have fun with splatter art by flicking paintbrushes at the frame in different colors of paint.

Squirt gun painting

Water fights with squirt guns are already a fun activity, but you can also have fun with them without getting wet by using them to paint a blank canvas or piece of card. Buy a few of those cheap, plastic squirt guns (or use ones you already have lying around) and fill each with a different colored paint. 

Squirt the paint at the blank canvas from close up or further away and in different colors to create fun and interesting patterns. Do this outdoors to keep your home safe from flying paint, and make sure you lay some ground rules so your kids don’t start spraying paint on each other’s clothes or in faces.

What fun and imaginative creations could you make with your kids? If you need a custom frame for your creations or for their photos and artwork, then contact Tanglewood Art and Frame or visit us in our Clemmons store.

Your child’s bedroom is somewhere you can get really fun, colorful, and creative when it comes to decorating. You could decorate it in a way that reflects the things they love, whether that’s dinosaurs, cute animals, or superheroes, for example. Or you could just opt for bright colors and more generic decorations like geometric patterns. After all, some young kids tend to move quickly from one phase to the next when it comes to their interests.

If you’re looking for some interesting ways to decorate your kid’s room, then here are some fun ideas you could try.

Decals

Decals are a simple way to apply patterns and images to your kid’s walls. The image or pattern is prepared on some material and then can be easily transferred to the wall. These can be made in a wide variety of sizes, so you could cover one wall with an image of their favorite character or animal, for example, or apply lots of different images as a kind of border. There are lots of possibilities when it comes to decals.

Posters

You can add pops of color to their walls with posters, which can be stuck up on their own, prepared on canvas, or custom framed and hung up. Kids will love choosing their own posters or pulling them out of magazines. And you can find posters for pretty much anything your child is interested in.

Photos

Framed photos are another great option for your kid’s walls. Parents are especially likely to do this when the child is still a baby or infant, framing baby photos and putting them up on the walls. As they get older, your child may want to choose their own photos, such as a fun family moment or photos of them with their friends.

Framed toys and keepsakes

At Tanglewood Art and Frame, we don’t just frame 2D pieces like photos and artwork, but also 3D objects. Maybe your child has a favorite toy they no longer play with, an item of clothing they’ve grown out of, or a baby blanket, for example. You could have this item, or multiple items of this kind, custom framed and hung on the wall. 

If you need any custom framing services for decorating your child’s room or any other areas in your home, then contact Tanglewood Art and Frame to find out more about our services, or visit us in-store in Clemmons, NC.

When you think about framing things to put on your walls, your mind probably goes straight to paper. Photos, drawings, paintings, certificates. Whatever it is you’re thinking of, it’s probably flat. But why should the pleasure of framing and preserving meaningful or beautiful thing stop there?

When it comes to custom framing, you can frame lots of different things that you might not have even thought of before. Read on for some ideas of different things you can frame with us and why you might want to do so.

Clothes

Old clothes can serve as great memories of the past, especially things like baby clothes, sports uniforms, and graduation gowns. Usually, these things just get left in a box somewhere or thrown out. By framing an important item of clothing, you can preserve it and keep it on display in your home. Read more about framing clothes here.

Memorabilia

Memorabilia like concert tickets and souvenirs from events help you to remember special nights with family or friends. You can put these things together in a framed collage to commemorate an event or a relationship. For example, a collection of all the movie stubs you and your partner have collected together.

Books

You can frame larger items like books in a display case. Light books may be suitable for framing and mounting on the wall, while heavier ones can be placed in a freestanding display case.

Textiles

A sample of your child’s baby blanket is a great example of a meaningful textile you can frame for display. Perfect if you can’t decide what to do with something like this.

Maps

Is there a specific place that means a lot to you? Maybe it’s an old holiday destination, your place of birth, or the place you and your partner first met. Framing a map of this area is a good way to commemorate this.

Children’s toys

Your child’s toys are something else that can mean a lot to you and your family, but often just end up causing clutter. Choose your child’s favorite toy and preserve it in a frame or display case. 

Souvenirs

You’ve probably collected a lot of souvenirs from past vacations, and they’re probably scattered in a drawer somewhere in your home. Things like postcards, keyrings, and other souvenirs can be framed to remember each vacation.

At Tanglewood Art and Frame, our motto is “if you can carry it in, we can frame it.” This blog just has a handful of ideas of things you can frame, but if you have other ideas, then let us know. Take a look at some of our past projects if you need a little more inspiration. You can also visit us in store in Clemmons, NC to ask us any questions or get your items framed.