Introduction

This book is dedicated to the many ways families celebrate special occasions: from personal Christmas cards that feature family photos to cookbooks filled with your best Passover or Thanksgiving recipes, from digital scrapbook pages to unique gift ideas that will be treasured by even the most difficult people on your list.

Throughout these pages, you'll find designs for specific holidays, including Halloween, Easter, Hanukkah, Rosh Hashanah, Three Kings Day, and Chinese New Year. You won’t find designs for every holiday in this book (I'd have to write hundreds of pages to cover them all) but I've included a wide variety of special occasions because I want this book to serve as many families as possible and because I believe we can all learn from each other's traditions and ideas as we create our own digital memories. No matter which holidays your family celebrates, I hope you'll be inspired by the techniques and projects in this book and use them to create digital memories of the special moments you share with your loved ones.

Let me reassure you right away that although this book focuses on digital memory projects, you don't have to be an expert with a computer to make these beautiful designs. As I wrote Digital Family Album Special Occasions, I worked hard to develop projects that are elegant and timeless─yet still easy to create─by combining simple instructions with predesigned templates and tons of helpful tips.

In writing this book, I drew on the diverse experiences of my friends and family, gathering ideas from their many holiday traditions, gift ideas, and celebrations. I also worked with a team of professional designers and photographers, combining their best tips, design ideas, and photographs to create a wide range of projects that are easy and fun to create.

The many tutorials, tips, and templates you'll find here are the result of that collective effort. Here's a sampling of what you'll find in these pages:

• My parents inspired me to seek out the best websites where you can personalize coffee cups, puzzles, ornaments, and other gifts with your own photos. Throughout these chapters you'll find ideas for many gifts, tips for choosing the best photos to adorn them, and websites where you can easily order a wide range of gift products by simply uploading your photos online.
• My friend Shari Witkoff's tales of the many wonderful meals she's enjoyed at her mother's table at Hanukkah, Rosh Hashanah, Purim, and Passover prompted me to create a variety of family cookbook designs.
• My nieces gave me the idea to create thank-you cards with room for personal messages in a child's own words because, well, children do say the darndest things.
• My friends Paul and Tait Viskovich inspired a Father's Day brag book and an award you can customize for any worthy recipient.

Contributors and Friends

I also invited a few friends who are graphic designers to contribute their own personal greeting card designs. Among them:

Davi Cheng, who created the Chinese New Year and Hanukkah cards

Jaime Luis Hernandez, who created another of the Christmas card designs and a friendship card.

Adriana Romero (www.disenno.com), who created the Three Kings Day cards and some of the Christmas card designs.