I’m sure everyone has already got their card done and ordered by now, so I’m probably just preaching to the choir, right?  Well, if you haven’t quite got it done yet I have a few tips for you.  By the way, I finally got ours done yesterday, so I’m not exactly on my way to the post office to mail them out.

Come up with your format

Now you can just get a family picture taken, and use one of the many different variety of card templates offered by the different photo outlets.  Most of them are in the form of a elongated flat picture.  Then there are some places that offer the folded greeting cards for a bit more (you can find them on Mpix or Vista Prints).

Decide on the size of the card that you want, and you can use Photoshop to create a customized card.  There are many digital scrapbooking places online, and some allow free downloads (one example is Shabby Princess).  You can use these graphics to create your customized card and get creative!  If you know how to use layers, you can use graphics.

The thing that I love about them is that I can put something on every side (well, Mpix let’s you do that).  I put the kids’ ages on the inside of the cover and a fun “logo” on the back to show that I made the card.  They just let you be a bit more creative…for a price of course.  I wish they cost as much as the flat cards, but alas, they don’t.

The picture

Do you have a family picture?  That will work!  Otherwise, there are some props that you can use to take some cute pictures.  Come up with a fun idea and bribe your children to take the pictures.  Tracey at Picture This had a good post on it last year around this time.

Make sure to take lots of pictures since those little faces tend not to cooperate.  This year and last I only had a few pictures where both of them were actually cooperating.  Little buggers.

 

Now, you are all set to go.  Go forth and create your best holiday card yet!  Or, just decide that takes too much time and buy some ready made cards at the store.  I won’t judge. 😉

Here’s our card from last year. 

card 2006 

I’m not unveiling this year’s card until I get them mailed out, so it will be at least a week or more.  I ordered them last night, so who knows when I will get them in the mail.  I’m hoping for before December 24th. 😀