DIY School Photos

Parents: prepare to have your world ROCKED.

We’ve all been there: school photo day. After remembering just in time that it’s photo day (yay!) spamming your kid’s hair down, sending them to school in a stain-free jumper, hoping against hope that when the proofs come home they will actually:

a) still look clean

b) not be gurning

c) not require you to remortgage in order to be able to afford eight small photos and a keyring.

We just had to share this amazing MOLO hack with you, courtesy of Sarah Shaves, who shared her gorgeous school photos with The Motherload®’s fantastic Facebook community. Only they weren’t really school photos…

Here’s what she posted:

SCHOOL PHOTOS = Bane of my life and quite possibly a fair few of you are also guilty of not being prepared for them on the day they’re taken?

Either their hair is messy, their uniform is not on form, maybe some miserable faces or even mucky faces…? I’ve had it all!

Sooo why would we pay out (totally overpriced btw) for photos that are just not always satisfactory? I certainly won’t and I haven’t!

So after a few days dwelling on the fact that now another year we’ve missed out on having the kids school photos, I decided to take matters into my own hands and came up with the genius idea to do my very own “school photo shoot”

So I got them all bathed, did their hair nice and put on their freshly ironed school clothes. I set up a little seating area on my biggest wall and got them all giving me their best smiles.

Genius idea, mission accomplished and I have saved myself at least £50 = Win Win!!

And because I am pretty proud of myself and these 3 gorgeous kiddos, I’m going to show them all off and share with you all my very own handy work this evening.

Sarah’s post got a brilliant response from the MOLOs with hundreds of likes and comments, many from mums saying they loved the idea and were going to do exactly the same with their kids.

Jill: Brilliant work, you’ve taken control back! I hate how we’re held to ransom for photos of our own children and at ridiculously ramped up prices for a pack never just a simple single image. I was feeling under sentimental pressure to order especially as my daughter has just started school but my husband can and has taken far better photos of her so we’ve decided not to bother buying the official one.

Katie: Wow amazing idea i always feel bad for rarely paying out extortionate prices for school photos! I always prefer the photos I get of them anyway! Defo nicking this idea

Oana: I did this on the actual school picture day! Sat my DD in front of a nice white wall, took 30 something pictures and now we have great school pictures! I’m going to do this every year from now on. As usual the ones from school look like they’re of some goblin we’re not sure is ours.

Naomi: WHY have I never thought of this before??? This is bloody genius! Well done you! It was funny actually as I saw the picture before reading and thought wow that’s a good school photo!! They’re great – the kids look awesome in them.

Like this? Share it and spread the MOLO love! You can take Alison’s brilliant quiz How MOLO Are You? and for the latest from The Motherload® head to our homepage

About Alison McGarragh-Murphy

Alison is the Editor of The Motherload®, and is also a radio producer and broadcast journalist, a mum of two and a wife of one. Since becoming a mother she has (mostly) gladly swapped a busy social life of gigs, pubs, art galleries and museums for dancing in the kitchen, drinking on the sofa, finger painting and hanging out at the park. She talks incessantly about not having slept for four and a half years.

You can follow Alison on Twitter and find all her blogs on Facebook

Image credit: Sarah Shaves