Grandparent Gifts? No Problem with Portrait Innovations! #sp

**A huge thanks to Portrait Innovations for sponsoring today's post. All thoughts are my own.

Holiday shopping is now in full swing and if your list looks like mine, there are many people to shop for! Aside from the children, perhaps one of the most fun people to shop for is GRANDPARENTS!  They're also one of the EASIEST to shop for. After all, there is nothing that most grandparents love more than to show off their grandchildren!! What better way to do that than with photos?

When I was growing up, this was the typical grandparent gift every Christmas. They always knew it was coming, but they were always thrilled to get them nonetheless. There was nothing my grandparents loved more than having us all on display throughout their home. Over the past couple of years, I too have continued on this tradition. Whether it was a collection of prints or a photo gift, I have tried to include pictures of my little ones in whatever we gave! And just like my own grandparents, they have loved them.

But can I make a confession? Up until this year, all of those photos (aside from my son's school photos) have just been simple shots I've taken of my children myself. Believe it or not, despite my love of pictures, we had not had family pictures taken since my daughter had arrived- in August 2013!! Needless to say, our trip to Portrait Innovations was long overdue!

And well worth the wait!

Now, I must admit, I'm usually not a huge fan of portrait type studios. On the one hand, they're great because they're a very affordable option for everyone. On the other hand, when we've gone to department store type portrait studios, the experience had been less than desirable. The sessions felt rushed, the photos were the same boring photos everyone got and even the quality was just not great either.

But Portrait Innovations was not like that at all!

Even being the busiest time of their year, we went in and did not feel rushed at all! We started with our Christmas portraits, doing a large selection of both family, just the kids, even a few of my husband and I alone. Now, if you have ever had pictures taken with little ones, you know that patience is a must... kids and sitting still? Yeah, right! With a child with autism in the family... well, it takes even more patience! But the photographer and his assistant did wonderfully. When my daughter needed a break, they gave her a break. When the kids were being silly, they didn't try to rush them along. They took their time and made sure we got just the pictures we wanted!

Then-unlike many other portrait studios I'd been to- we were able to do a complete wardrobe change and do some more casual, less holiday-themed photos! Here there were many backgrounds to choose from- fall scenes, winter scenes...but I prefer a more classic look so we kept it very simple. They allowed us to give our input on what we wanted, and had we wanted to we could have brought our own props too! Again, we never felt rushed and they never lost patience with my kids who were now getting a little bored with the whole experience! In fact, after it seemed the kids were done for the day and we settled in to look at all the pictures, they even let us know that if we thought of something else that we wanted to try we could go back and snap a few more, no problem. As I said, they truly wanted us to be happy with our photos! And we were!! In fact, narrowing them down was quite the challenge! We wanted them all! Needless to say, we walked out with many more prints than expected! And yes, we walked out the door with our photos! We do have to return to pickup some photo gifts that they could not print there, but the prints themselves were in hand when we left! Awesome!

And those photo gifts? They offered many great choices like calendars, canvas prints, mugs, ornaments and more! You can order them along with the rest of your prints, OR order later online. This truly is a great way to give one of a kind photo gifts with good professional pictures- which is not usually an option with other photo gift sites when using copyrighted photos!

The best part of the whole Portrait Innovations experience?

It truly is very affordable! Take a look at their current promo:

Pretty amazing, right? For just $20 you can get Christmas gifts for grandparents, aunts and uncles too!! 

Now, I'll be honest sticking to just ONE pose will be tough, but even adding additional poses is cheaper than many other options! And again, you can order more later as the budget allows!

Overall, I was thrilled with our Portrait Innovations experience and highly recommend them to anyone looking to get good quality holiday or family portraits without breaking the bank! I wasn't the only one impressed either! My photo hating husband said we should make this a yearly trip, and my son who usually tells me, 'just ONE picture' asked to go back the next day!

Ready to schedule YOUR family portrait session with a Portrait Innovations near you? Visit here to find a studio and schedule today.