Category: Holidays Page 4 of 14

Stories about the occasions that matter most.

7 Day Photo Challenge: Easter Edition

On March 31, 2020

Learning how to take the best photos entails more than knowing how to work the camera. It’s about setting up the right shot and working with the materials and subjects that you’ve got. This new 7 Day Photo Challenge series lets you get more creative with your photography and lets you share these moments with family and friends.

Start Your Easter Photo Challenge

To celebrate Easter this year, we want you to take part in our 7 Day Photo Challenge, filled with fun activities that you and the family can enjoy. Upload your photo challenges to your social media profiles with the hashtag #NixplayEasterPhotoChallenge and showcase your favorite snaps this Easter season!

Check out our Easter Instagram photo challenge ideas below.

1. All The Chocolate

Since a large portion of the Easter period is spent munching on chocolate, we’ve taken the opportunity to challenge you to take the best chocolate-filled photo. We’re looking for candid shots of your little ones diving into their first Easter egg, or mouthwatering snaps featuring your edible Easter bunnies. This Easter photo idea is simple but effective–and as a sweet bonus, you get to eat all the chocolate, too.

2. Fresh Flowers

Head down to a flower garden or meadow, or pick up some fresh blossoms to feature in your photos. Spring is all about colorful blooms and new life, so there’s no better way to celebrate than with a beautiful photo of fresh flowers, be it a charming bunch of hand-picked daisies, a scenic photo of a meadow, or a portrait of a loved one with a bouquet. Get creative and play around with petals, leaves, and blossoms to come up with a memorable image. If you’ve got time to play around, you could even put together a flower crown for each of your family members to wear. If all else fails, don’t forget that green grass and brightly colored flowers make for the perfect Easter photo backdrop!

3. Painted Eggs

Give your family another challenge and have a competition for the best decorated hard-boiled egg. Painting and decorating eggs is a classic Easter activity that both children and adults can get involved in, so why not treasure the moment with a photo challenge? Here are some egg painting ideas to get you started:

Dye your eggs using drops of food coloring in a bath of water
Draw faces on your eggs using a permanent marker
Paint Easter bunnies, flowers, and polka dots
Use finger painting techniques

If you want to up the ante, let your family and friends who live far away vote by sending photos of your finished eggs to their Nixplay Wi-Fi cloud frames! It’s a great way to get the whole gang involved, no matter where they are.

4. Easter Egg Hunt Candids

It’s finally spring, so make the most out of the weather and step outside for the ultimate Easter egg hunt. Take your camera out with you to snap some cute candids of your little ones while they’re on the lookout. Prepare lots of Easter eggs and wicker baskets to get the perfect snaps. You can set up in the back yard, or head over to the local park for your Easter egg hunt.

Top tip: When taking candid photos, use Burst Mode on your Smart Phone to get the best in-the-moment shot.

5. Bunny Ears

Pick up some bunny ears from your local fancy dress shop for our Day 5 photo challenge. Put them on the kids, on your furry friends, or on the whole family for the perfect Easter snap! You can even have a little fun with it and wear them out in public, sharing your snaps with friends and family using the Nixplay App as you go.

6. Easter Cupcakes

We challenge you to bake and decorate some delicious Easter cupcakes! Whether they’re topped with baby chicks, adorable bunnies, fluffy sheep, or an edible bird’s nest made of chocolate, we want to see it. Be as creative as you can be with it, but here are some top tips to get you started:

Use piping nozzles and green icing to top your cupcakes with “grass”.
Decorating with sheep? Use mini marshmallows to make them look nice and fluffy.
Dip strawberries in orange icing and stick them on the tops of your cupcakes to create the illusion of baby carrots sticking out of the ground.

After this, have a mini photoshoot with your Easter cupcakes to show them off to your friends and family (that is, if you can wait to eat them!).

7. Baby Animals

Celebrate new life at Easter and head to your local petting zoo to take some shots of the adorable lambs and baby chicks, plus the cute puppies, bunnies, and kittens. Try to get the best shots for your final submission to the Nixplay 7 Day Photo Challenge–and we’ll give you bonus points if you can capture a smile!

Sharing Your 7 Day Photo Challenges

Remember to keep everyone up to date with your 7 Day Photo Challenge! Share your photo challenges with other Nixplay users and connect your digital photo frame to your social media accounts. You can also send your Easter photos to your frames via email, the Nixplay app or our website–so sharing memories with the family has never been easier.

Unique St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations

By Mars Salazar

On March 19, 2020

In Holidays

St. Patrick’s Day is usually celebrated on March 17 with lots of parties and events. Here are some of the unique ways the holiday was commemorated this year.

An out-of-this-world commemoration

Astronauts marked St. Patrick’s Day with photos of Ireland taken from the International Space Station, located 408 kilometers above the earth. It’s a fitting way to honor the Emerald Isle.

Silven screens turned green

A simple way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day is to watch movies about Ireland and its people. Some folks opted for classics like My Left Foot and Far And Away, while others went for fresher films like The Irishman. There’s no shortage of movies on the topic–and it’s not yet too late to join in on the fun!

An Irish Jig

Some folks celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by learning how to do the jig, a lively folk dance that’s commonly associated with Ireland. It’s a fun way to celebrate the occasion while working up a sweat. Learn how to do so below:

Having virtual celebrations

Several musicians and DJs, including Irish punk band The Dropkick Murphys, held online concerts so people can enjoy their concerts from the comfort of their homes. Some farm owners also held livestreamed St. Patrick’s Day parades around their property, much to the delight of their online audience.

Verdant buildings

St. Patrick’s Day wouldn’t be complete without some of the world’s most famous landmarks going green. The London Eye, Madison Square Garden, and the Burj Khalifa are just three of several sites in 50 countries that glowed a viridian hue, bringing hope and spreading cheer to people across the globe.

It’s not yet too late to have your own St. Patrick’s Day celebration! You can also reminisce about the previous St. Paddy’s Day parties you’ve attended by displaying your fun moments on a Nixplay Frame. Take advantage of our St. Patrick’s Day sale today!

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.

How to Look Photo-Ready for St. Patrick’s Day and Beyond

By Seth McKinley

On March 16, 2020

In Holidays

Looking picture-perfect is a goal many strive for. This is especially true on holidays like St. Patrick’s Day, where office parties and parades are abundant and pictures are captured to commemorate the events. If you’re worried about your celebrations not being photogenic enough, now is the perfect time to set yourself up for success on St. Patrick’s Day and beyond. Make sure you’re photo-ready for whatever event is thrown your way with these tips and tricks!

Let your outfit take center stage in photos

You wouldn’t want to look back on your photos from St. Patrick’s Day and only be able to notice that ketchup stain on your shirt. You will want to make sure your outfit is picked out and planned beforehand to avoid having to rush while getting ready. You also will want to make sure the outfit blends in at whatever activity you’re going to. You don’t want to be the only one dressed up as a leprechaun at your office party, nor would you like to be the only one not wearing green to the bar. Ask around and see if what your co-workers or friends are wearing aligns with your planned outfit for the day.

This advice actually goes beyond just St. Patrick’s Day. Make sure to plan your outfit accordingly for all the events and parties you attend. Just like wearing a color other than green on St. Patrick’s Day, you do not want to be the only one besides the bride wearing white to your friend’s wedding.

Picking out the outfit beforehand will not only save you some time getting ready on the day of the event, but it will also give you some peace of mind that what you’re wearing will be appropriate for the big day. This will let you focus on socializing with friends or co-workers, and not on your shirt being inside out. It will also help you show off your confidence in photos!

Strike a pose

It’s normal to feel uncomfortable in front of the camera, especially when you’re lacking in confidence. Try planning out what pictures you want to snap for the night and how to best pose for them! For group photos, try thinking about where you’ll want to position yourself. You don’t want to be the shortest of the group and get stuck behind your tallest friend at the last second. Being prepared for whatever picture may be captured can also help give you a confidence boost. Plus, a great pose can highlight your body’s best features and minimize the parts you aren’t too confident about.

It’s important that you do some research beforehand (even if your ‘research’ is just practicing poses in the mirror) to see what feels most natural and shows off your figure in the best light. Check out some of these tips to see how you should be posing for pictures!

Get a good night’s sleep and show off your energetic side

Once again, you wouldn’t want to look back on your pictures and only be able to focus on the dark circles under your eyes. Most adults need at least seven hours of sleep every night to feel their best. This is especially important on days like St. Patrick’s Day, when bar hopping and staying out late is common for many. Make sure you’re getting in enough z’s before any big event to ensure you’re looking well-rested in photos!

Getting a good night’s rest before an eventful day like St. Patrick’s Day will be a life-saver, and this will show in the pictures you capture too.

Make sure your skin is glowing and photo-ready

While most photos won’t show every blemish and imperfection on your skin, making sure you’ve maintained a consistent skincare routine will help your skin have a youthful and glowing appearance in photos. The first step to achieving this is to know your skin type. If you have oily and acne-prone skin, a heavy moisturizer may not be the best idea. Do some digging to find out what type of products work best with your skin type. If you’re not exactly sure what category you fit into, be sure to check out this guide.

Next, you’ll want to find the best products for you. Pay attention to how your skin reacts to certain products and watch out for signs of irritation such as bumps or rashes. What may seem like a good product may actually leave your skin looking red and irritated in pictures with friends.

Men should also mind their skincare. If your skin is on the sensitive side, make sure to grab a skin-protecting shaving kit that will give you a clean shave without razor bumps and cuts. This will help you look and feel your best when the camera flash goes off!

Show off your smile

Last but certainly not least, you’ll want to make sure your teeth are taken care of before the big day. Often, the first thing anyone notices in a picture is their smile. The last thing you would want to notice after the camera flashes is a piece of food stuck in your teeth. Make sure your teeth are brushed and flossed just before you leave for your big plans so you can show off that smile. Whitening your teeth doesn’t have to be expensive and time-consuming! If you really want to go the extra mile and achieve a whiter smile, there are lots of simple home remedies that will do the trick. It’s never a bad thing to have the brightest and biggest smile in the room when you ‘say cheese’ before the picture is snapped.

Once the photos are taken and St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone, make sure you can always look back on them with a Nixplay digital frame. Thinking back on those memories with a smile will be the icing on the cake! We hope these tips will help you prepare for your St. Patrick’s Day parties and beyond!

Here’s What The Year of the Rat Holds In Store For You

By Mars Salazar

On January 24, 2020

In Holidays

On January 25, the world will celebrate Chinese New Year (or the Lunar New Year, as some prefer to call it). This important event takes place on the new moon that appears between January 21 and February 20, and is regarded as a time to honor ancestors, reunite with families, and make way for incoming luck.

The Chinese New Year is also associated with the 12 animal signs of the Chinese Zodiac, with each animal representing a year in a 12-year cycle. 2020 is the year of the Rat, meaning people who were born in this year are smart, charming, quick-witted, and especially lucky. But regardless of your sign, you too can make your dreams come true this lunar new year as long as you work hard and play your cards right. Read your horoscope below to see how lucky you’ll be!

The Chinese New Year is also a great visual spectacle, with plenty of picture-perfect traditions you can take part in. Take lots of photos, and display them on a Nixplay Frame so you can look back at your lunar new year memories! Take advantage of Nixplay’s Clearance Sale and get up to 25% off, only for a limited time!

Whether or not you’re celebrating Chinese New Year, remember this: At the end of the day, your fortune will depend solely on you. Don’t let the stars (or the moon) dictate your future, and make your own luck!

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.

5 New Year’s Resolutions For 2020

By Mars Salazar

On January 2, 2020

In Holidays

The dawn of a new year heralds a new opportunity to revamp your life. 2020 is extra special because it’s not just a new year, but a new decade. Make it your best one yet with these simple resolutions:

Mind Your Spending

It’s hard to resist the call of the Sale sign, but really, do you need another bag or another pair of shoes? (You probably don’t). This year, make it a habit to track your spending to avoid needless purchases. Download a spending tracker and religiously record all your expenses and income. When all your expenses are on record, it would be easier for you to resist the temptation to buy things impulsively.

Pay Attention To Your Health

You can make more money, but you only have one life to live–and you’ve got to make sure that it’s one well lived. Don’t neglect your health: be mindful of what you’re eating, make sure to exercise, and don’t stress over the small stuff. Remember: you may have all the money in the world, but you can’t take even a single cent with you to the grave.

Treasure Your Loved Ones

If you’ve had a loved one pass away, you’ve probably wished you’ve told them just how much they meant to you before it became too late. That’s why you should make it a point to make your nearest and dearest feel loved. You don’t need grand gestures: Even simple things, like calling your parents every few days and saying “I love you” to your family every day, go a long way.

Enjoy The Little Things

With everything going on in the world, it’s never been more important to take care of yourself. Set aside time each day to relax and thank the universe for all your blessings. Put on a face mask, pour yourself a glass of wine, dive into your favorite Netflix series, or catch up on sleep. You’ll thank yourself later.

Take More Pictures

Life is short, so capture every moment! Don’t be shy to take out your camera to snap pictures of events both memorable and mundane. This way, you’ll have lots of memories to look back at in the future.

One more thing: Don’t let your photos remain hidden in your hard drive. After all, what’s the use of taking pictures when you won’t even look at them? Display your photos on a Nixplay Frame so you can enjoy them at all times. Take advantage of our New Year Sale to get the frame you’ve been eyeing at an irresistible price!

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.