could save you some money this year!
Sending and receiving Christmas cards is one of my favorite holiday activities. I so look forward to checking the mail box at this time of year! I hope that no matter how digital/techy we become as a society that we never stop this special tradition.
When you send a personalized photo card (even with so many options available from Snapfish to Target) you can pretty easily spend about $1.00 per card, sometimes even more. There are discounts available, but quite often only if you order more than 50 cards. We aren’t popular enough to need that many.
So just like last year I created my own collage – this time using PicMonkey’s create a collage option.
They’ve added a “cards” option – it’s there on the left under “ducks in a row”.
I took some pics of my kids and then created this collage card with 4 of my favorites from our little photo session (I think I took like 50 pictures). Then I uploaded the picture collage and used PicMonkey’s editing tools to add some Christmas messages in fun fonts. The great thing about PicMonkey (in case you aren’t already in the know) is that it is FREE and super easy to use!
Then instead of having this collage printed on card stock like I did last year (which cost me about $1.30 a card), I ordered regular 4×6 prints from CVS. The weight of a regular photo print is similar to a glossy photo card. I ordered 30 which would have cost $.19 each; but I had a 25% off photo order coupon, so I paid $.14 each!!! Yep, 30 cards only cost me a total of $4.27!!! And CVS offers same day pickup, so I didn’t have to pay for shipping and was able to pick up my prints just hours after I ordered them!
But photo prints don’t come with envelopes, so I stopped by Staples and bought a box of 50 plain white envelopes for $7.99. Yes, my envelopes were more expensive than my cards by 2 cents each. Crazy right?! I could have probably picked up some less expensive envelopes at Big Lots or maybe even Target, but I figured for a total of $.30 per card (photo print + envelope) I had already done pretty darn good.
Because I already had some white card stock at home I decided to mount the prints using double sided tape. This way I could further personalize the cards on the back since I didn’t add our family name to the photo.
I used my alphabet stamps and a red sharpie to add our name to the back. (Yes, I know there should be an apostrophe on the S in Phillips, but I don’t have an apostrophe stamp and didn’t like how it looked in red.) I addressed them in the same way using some Martha Stewart labels (also from Staples) that jumped in to my basket.
Now I just need to get some stamps and put my cards in the mail.
Maybe you’ve already been doing this – ordering regular photo prints of a card you created yourself – but this was a new thing for me. And I can’t believe I’ve never thought to do this before! I’ve almost always ordered a photo card using a style chosen from the “holiday cards” section on either Snapfish or Tiny Prints. I think this will be my new method. These are the most inexpensive cards I’ve ever sent!
Have you mailed your cards yet? What kind of cards do you send?
Cute, cost-saving idea! Strikes a nice balance between pre-printed cards and completely DIY card with lots of steps.
And don't sweat the apostrophe! Looks like you don't need one: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/how-to-make-family-names-plural.aspx