Welcome to December: The whirlwind of holiday dinners, parties, family gatherings, cookie baking, and card sending. Christmas Cards. The thought of wrangling Steven and I up on a Sunday afternoon, getting the perfect pose, the right smile, and good lighting seems like a bear. Don’t even get me started on how expensive cards are to order! Every year I scroll through the endless pages of cards on Shutterfly or Snapfish, and decide to make my own cards—I’m not about to spend $1.50 on paper…I’m sorry, but that’s all it is!
Since the first year we got married, I’ve been determined to send out a Christmas card each year. I love getting these cards from friends and I think it will be really fun to look back over all these cards when we’re 80. They’ll change with the fashion trends and the graphics will change drastically from decade to decade, babies (Lord willing) will come, and grow—and that’s something that I think will be a really neat pile of memories for us and our family some day! The problem is, that’s an expensive pile! But it didn’t take me long to figure out how to save significantly when it comes to Christmas cards.
A Cheaper Christmas Card
As much as I would love to be someone who stamps and makes my own paper cards, I just can’t. There are not enough days in the year or hours in the day for me to add stamping to my endless list of hobbies (I’m also pretty sure my studio would collapse with one more craft supply). So, my Christmas card solution for each year has been to design my own on a program like Illustrator, Photoshop, or Affinity. These programs allow me to add text and color, and then simply plop my image in.
This is our Christmas card from the first year we were married…we suffered through a freezing (but awesome) photoshoot with Sara Bittner for this puppy!
After I get the card just how I want it, I upload to a photo site (Snapfish seems to have the best prices at the moment) and get regular 4×6 prints made. If I can find a free shipping coupon or pick up in-store, you bet I will! Those cards will cost me 9¢, whereas your typical card from a photo site will be well over $1, usually about $1.50 each! You can always do a different size, or something fancy like a square print, but for my purposes, I’ll go with the cheaper print and do something fancy for the graphics.
Easy For You To Say…
I’m fully aware that not everyone has a computer program that will allow them to do this kind of work. Or maybe you don’t have time to sit and design something—that’s no problem! There are tons of Etsy sellers and other sites that will sell a template to you at a low cost. There are usually two ways to use these templates. Some sellers give you a download of the Photoshop file and then you are responsible for the rest: adding the image, changing text, etc. The other type of listing that I’ve seen is where you send the seller your image, they change the photo and text and then send you the file. From there you’ll order the print.
This is from the first Christmas in our first home! I was pretty excited about that giant fireplace & Steven was pretty excited about that giant tree!
Let Me Help
I’d love to help you save some money on Christmas Cards this year! This year, I’m going to be posting my own Christmas card template for sale. If you’d like one, hop on over to my shop to order! All you need to do is send me a high resolution image for the background and your full name(s) for the text when you check out. Within 24 hours I’ll send you the file for printing, and you can have them printed wherever you’d like!
I chose Peace on Earth as our phrase this year because it’s really been my prayer, especially during these trying times, for God to bring true peace on earth.
So now that you’re not spending $80 on paper this year, what are you going to do with the extra cash? I say, lets use that extra money for something worthwhile! Maybe consider giving to the the less fortunate—we had a blast choosing gifts from the Compassion Catalog for those in third-world countries! What do you plan to do with the extra cash?