You don't have to spend big bucks buying artwork for your home. Your photos are a perfect alternative that's personal, affordable and versatile. Here are a few ideas for decorating your space with photos:

Create a family photo wall. Print your favourite family shots, frame them, and arrange them all on one wall. For a cohesive look, keep frames in one colour family (all black, or all silver), but feel free to mix up textures, thicknesses and shapes for visual interest. This approach works really well on a large living room wall, in a hall or a stairway.

Make a travel wall. This is the same ideas as the family wall, but with vacation photos. Focus on images from a single trip, or assemble all your best travel shots in one place.

Go big with your favourite shots. Blow up the prints you really love to 8x10, 11x14, or even a dramatic 24x30. Pick up some inexpensive frames, and create a photo gallery on your walls. Or mount your poster-size prints on foamcore and lean them up against a free wall for an arty gallery feel.

Collage it. Use the easy kwikpix.ca collage tool to create a beautiful poster for your child's room – compile photos of friends, sports teams, school events, etc., to create personalized art they'll love.

Be abstract. Don't limit yourself to shots of smiling people. Create art by thinking like an artist. Take a closeup photo of a crumpled leaf. Shoot the blurred lights of moving cars in a night time streetscape. Focus on beautiful fabrics, stacks of scarves at a market, petals on a flower, scattered pencils. Be creative. You might be surprised at what you can come up with.

Play with photo software. Make your photo look like a watercolour or a pencil drawing with filters. Create a faux Polaroid. Pull in crazy colours to create an Andy Warhol style photo. Experiment. Have fun. Then print your experiments and hang them up in your home.

Pick unusual frames. Why stick with storebought frames? Add visual interest to your décor by using found objects instead. Old window frames can be beautiful – just put a pic on each pane of glass. Mirrors work well too; arrange photos onto the glass with photo tape, leaving some mirror showing through for a light-filled collage. Or string a clothesline along one wall, and affix photos with clothespins. The ideas are endless.

Make a family “tree.” Paint a tree on a wall in your home, and hang photos of the people in your family on the branches.

Really, you can't go wrong when you surround yourself with images you love. Looking at them every day will make you happy. And if you get tired of a picture, just switch it up with something else. It's easy – and remarkably affordable.

Whether it's their first day of kindergarten or they're heading off to university, document those special back to school moments with a few key tips from the pros.

Be creative. In addition to the usual shots of your kid all dressed for school, include pics of all the little things that tell the story, like their backpack, brand new shoes (line up your kids in a row and take a shot of their feet for a fun shot), or the door to their new classroom. And don't forget their friends – there's nothing like capturing those special moments when they reunite with the buddies they've missed over the summer.

Use available light. Turn off the flash if possible. Your images will look more natural, and your children will feel more relaxed.

Get close. Don't just rely on your camera features to get close-up shots. Move around and get right up to your subjects. Most of the time it'll be faster than playing with the lens.

Measure the years. Pick a special place like your front porch or the front door of your child's school, and photograph your child in the same spot every September to show how much they've grown from year to year.

Don't forget your teens. Yes, little kids are usually more cooperative when it comes to being photographed, but it's important to document your teenager's milestones, too. He'll appreciate those memories when he gets older (even if he doesn't appreciate the attention now). Try some minimally embarrassing shots with the family pet, or shoot some candid pics of your kid moving into her dorm room at school.

Go on location. Don't limit your pictures to the front porch. Photos taken at school, the bus stop or even on the bus will bring back all kinds of wonderful memories.

Print 'em. Don't just keep your shots on your computer. Print the best ones – putting them on photo paper is the only proven long-term archival process.

Easy at-home techniques for getting great cake photos

You spent all day creating that beautiful cake. The piping is perfect, the icing smooth, the lettering just right. Before your masterpiece gets devoured, preserve it. Take a photo of all your hard work, and you'll have it long after the actual cake has been eaten.

So how do you get a good photo of a birthday cake, especially when it has lit candles on it? All you have to do is adapt a few basic lighting techniques from the pros.

Step 1. Start with some simple reflectors. Professional photographers often use mirrors cut into different shapes. You can get similar results with aluminium foil, cardboard and masking tape. Find a piece of cardboard. Cut a piece of aluminium foil that's slightly larger than the cardboard you wish to cover. Crumple it into a ball, then carefully open it up into a sheet again. Place the crumpled foil over the cardboard so it lays flat, folding the extra foil over the edges and taping them down on the back.

Step 2: Turn off all the inside lights, and switch your camera flash to “off.” Light the candles.

Step 3: Adjust your camera position so there's a window to one side or directly behind the cake. Now use the reflector card you just made to “bounce” light back into the deep shadow areas, such as under the plate.

Step 4: Ensure the light balance on your camera is on auto or daylight. What you're looking for is the nice warm glow emitting from the candles.

Step 5: Take the shot! Once you've followed these simple steps, you should get some great images that show off your cake – and give you great memories to put in your album, photobook or scrapbook.