My wife saw this idea on Pinterest the other day, and asked me if I could do something like it.

Challenge accepted!

Here’s Mackenzie’s:

And Kegan’s:

The setup was pretty simple. I used this 5’x7′ collapsible background, a flash lighting the background right behind the kids, and an umbrella as the main light on the left. I used the window as the fill.

The background light was set to manual 1/4 power, while the main light was using TTL and was bouncing off the umbrella with a +1 exposure compensation. I shot at f/4.5 and 1/60th of a second at ISO 200. By shooting with a slower shutter speed, it ensured a good mix of the window light with flash.

Here are the final images for both:

I added the graphics and text in Photoshop, made 4×6″ prints of them, and used an X-Acto knife to cut the slits above and below the hand. Add a Blow Pop, and that’s it – Instant cool Valentine’s card!

If you want to try it, I made a template in photoshop that you can download here. Just add your photo to the bottom of the layers and resize it to fit with free transform, then change the name to your kid’s name with the text tool.

Hope you have a happy Valentine’s Day!