Yesterday we received a great Christmas card from Mare-Bear, with a personalized message inside and a gorgeous picture of their son on the cover. Simple, professional, and yet personalized and charming. It makes me think our annual letter and 2002 Christmas cards may take a backseat for next year and that we’ll just do a fun photo card next year (and yes, some of our cards are actually 5+ years old). In the end, the pricing ends up being the same if not better, by doing customized photo cards.
Creating customized cards online is a really easy process. For instance, I just went to CardsDirect.com and went into their Christmas cards section and found a sample photo card that I liked (see picture – no that’s not Denis and me). I uploaded a photo of the kids that I wanted to use, then spent a minute or two selecting the inside language, the font I wanted to use, as well as the personalized greeting from us. There didn’t seem to be any real limit as to what you could say in the personalized message or how long a message you could write. You also had the option of doing a COMPLETELY custom card and not even using their suggestions for inside language. Also, they provide free personalized envelopes for customers with the return address printed on the flap.
Since UPS shipping is provided free (woo hoo!), the end price for the 75 customized photo cards I chose came to just $113. I know for a FACT we spend more than that on Christmas cards every year. So I can almost guarantee that going the no-hassle route and ordering simple photo cards may be the thing we do next year.
As an added bonus, CardsDirect.com even has a cute blog where they promote various cards they offer on their website as well as card-sending etiquette.
Shutterfly is another good site for cards.