Simple Valentine's Day photos of your kids that you can actually take yourself

One look at Pinterest for Valentine’s Day photo ideas and your average mom might want to run away! Most of the set-ups are elaborate, expensive to reproduce, and incredibly time consuming. You can capture priceless photos of your kids this holiday with just a few easy little tricks. These simple Valentine’s Day photo ideas require minimal props and put the focus of the picture right where it belongs . . . on your KIDS.

As part of my 12 Days of 2018 photo challenge, I encourage you to take the time to do an intentional photo shoot with your kids. Pick one of these adorable ideas and have fun with it!

5 Simple Valentine’s Day photo ideas that you can totally take yourself:

Bake a brownie pop (or other baking session): You are bound to get happy, natural smiles from your kids when chocolate is involved. My girls are sitting on the kitchen floor, that blue backdrop is just our kitchen wall behind them. Find a well-lit spot with a plain backdrop and all you’ll see in the picture are the sweet smiles. You can get the recipe for our Valentine’s Day brownie pops right here.

Simple DIY Photo backdrops: If you don’t have a plain colored wall you want to use for your Valentine’s Day photo, try hanging a large swatch of wrapping paper! This red and white polka dotted paper was left over from a jumbo roll of Christmas wrapping paper. I cute a huge strip of it and just taped it to the wall where we had good light.

BUT, please note!! This set-up only works if you cannot see the edge of the paper in the photo. The biggest No-No I’ve seen is trying to crowd too many kids in front of the backdrop or the photographer standing too far away. Get down at eye level and shoot as close as you can so the backdrop fills the frame.

Chalkboard Signs: I found these cute heart-shaped chalkboards at Target one year. I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the “I love you because” sayings and then we just write in new phrases in chalk to complete the sentence. You could easily just write the entire message in chalk. Maybe it’s a note to the recipient of your calendar gift? Maybe it’s just a sweet saying about love and hugs? Ask your kids to think of the gift recipient when they smile to make it even more special.

Cute clothing & accessories: More than most other holidays, what makes or breaks an adorable Valentine’s Day photo of kids is what they are wearing. Thankfully, it is super easy to pick something out whether your child enjoys heart covered clothes or not. Just a simple red, pink, and white color palette would be enough.

When Little Pea was tiny, I bought that swoon-worthy little pink ruffle romper and giant flower headband over on Etsy. We got so much photo mileage out of it! I had the girls sit on the nursery floor one sunny morning and captured one of my all time favorite pictures of them.

Ruffle Rompers: You can find the same ruffle romper we used in that photo and more in a variety of colors from Chic Baby Rose over on Etsy.

Flower headbands: The store we used for our headbands is no longer in business, but I found AMAZING alternatives from the Lucky Cricket shop on Etsy. Check out these adorable Valentine’s Day headbands!

Make Your Own: Last year I made our own Valentine’s tees using my Silhouette Cameo. I found that cute heart beat design in the Silhouette Design store and then ironed it on to a pair of raglan shirts I bought super cheap on Amazon. You can see some of the options right here. Not familiar with a Silhouette? You can read my Beginner’s Guide to a Silhouette Cameo right here which includes some of my favorite sources for affordable supplies. This option is especially great if you have boys in your family. I know many of my mom friends have complained about finding cute options for their sons. So, why not make your own?

Get the dog involved: Daisy was still just a puppy and we wanted her to be part of our Valentine’s shoot in 2016. I found that adorable little puppy dress at Petsmart. The trick to getting the “Cutie Pie” message to be seen was to have one of the girls hold her in their lap and shoot down from above. I called Daisy’s name to get her to look up. So much easier than chasing after her or asking her to sit.

Now that my girls are getting older (and bigger!), I’m going to have to be a little more creative with our shot this year. If you’d like to see the updated photos I take for this year, be sure to join our Capture It! with Peanut Blossom photography challenge group on Facebook.

I’ll be sharing creative and simple photo ideas for kids all year long.