It’s Christmas Card Time!
I have a confession to make.
Last Christmas I did not send out any Christmas cards. I really don’t have a good excuse. I was on bedrest. The least I could have done was address a bunch of cards and written a decent letter.
Pretty, isn't it? Never did get sent! oops!
But, to be honest, I wasn’t in the mood. Things weren’t looking so hot with the Rev.’s call, and who wants to write some Debbie Downer Christmas letter saying, “Oh, by the way, Pam’s giving birth to twins in January, and after that, I’m out of a job.” I’m an eternal optimist however, and I knew things would look up in the new year, so I waited on sending out Christmas cards, and decided to send out birth announcements instead. My friend Kristin even took some great photos of the girls and designed an announcement (I just never quite got to that part, turns out I had lots more time on my hands when I was on bedrest!)
This year HAS to be different! If I don’t get some Christmas cards out, I’m going to be cut from everyone’s lists!
Enter my favorite photo processing website, Shutterfly! Shutterfly allows you to upload your digital photos and do beautiful things with them!
One of my favorite Shutterfly products is their photo book. There are five sizes of photo books starting at $10.39 per book! In the past I have used these as gifts for the grandparents, so they can see the grandkids in a year in review. You have the option of choosing “Simple Path” which will arrange your photos in the book chronologically (up to 400 photos), or you can custom design your book. I plan on making a Baby’s First Year Photo Book for each of the girls as a first birthday gift(You KNOW I don’t have time to traditionally scrapbook anymore!)
This will be too cute!
When I actually played with my photos and used paper and glue and stickers, I loved Shutterfly for their high quality and affordable photo processing. If you have fewer than six kids and some time on your hands, you’ll like Shutterfly for that as well! I still sometimes use Shutterfly for prints, since sometimes the kids need actual pictures that can be touched and glued etc. for school. Times like that I am thankful that I can order my prints on Shutterfly while I’m in my pajamas, then I can throw on some real clothes and go pick them up at Target or Walgreens or CVS in about an hour. Because, lets be honest here, Dakotapam is usually flying by the seat of her pants and realizes that photos are needed for a school project about 2 hours before they are due!
Years ago, inspired by the Rev’s aunt, we began filling a collage frame with different photos from the year, kind of a mini scrapbook to hang on the wall. We kept up pretty well, until we moved to North Dakota. This year I am catching up, and I’m using Shutterfly’s Collage Posters. All I have to do is choose my layout, upload and place my photos and Shutterfly does the rest. I finished our 2010 Collage! 
But the things I am super duper excited about, are Shutterfly Christmas cards! And Shutterfly does not just make Christmas cards! You name the holiday and Shutterfly can help you create a card for it! Better yet, if you totally know that you are going to flake out on actually sending the cards, Shutterfly will mail them for you!
I spent way more time than I actually have available looking at all of the Christmas cards. Ideally, we would have a really great family photo to design a card around. However, there are eight of us, and we live in a very real world. Therefore, we do not have a Christmas card worthy photo. Instead, I used the finder feature, that lets you choose cards according to the number of photos you have to work with. I came up with this really cute 2010 year in review card, that should save me some letter writing time as well. . . do you really want to read my Christmas letter?
One more Christmas task to check off of my list!
It was a lot of fun creating the card, and I kind of like the fact that we don’t have just one posed shot! A lot of great things happened to and through us this year, and I think this card captures it all pretty well!
In return for posting about Shutterfly, they are going to send me 50 of these cards to mail out to family and friends! That is pretty awesome! So watch your mailboxes, you just may be getting some Dakotapam mail soon!
Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly!
Chime in! Do you mail out Christmas cards? Do you include a letter? What kind of card do you send? How many do you send? Have you ever skipped a year, or two?
We have sent out cards since we had kids. We have been in the picts a couple of years but they are mostly so relatives can see the changes in our kids.
Shutterfly is awesome, isn’t it? Your card is so great!!!!
Twitter: EssieBurns
I want to read your Christmas letter
and I can’t wait to get a Christmas card in the mail 
I’m going to skip the postage and hand deliver yours. I’m cheap. At least you are getting one:)
Twitter: dakotapam
I LOVE Christmas. I think this year is maybe more so. I mail out about 100 Christmas cards and have been doing so since the H and I first got together (about 8 years now). Since having kids, I do Shutterfly photo cards. I am a geek and write up two letters. One for family here and one for the rest of the world. The H usually likes the “other” letter better (which is the one you are getting!). The girls have already helped me decorate the Christmas letters as well as envelopes, so it is a big deal in our house!! Plus this year, I am including D’s 6 month photos and her letter (I do one at 3,6, 9 & 12 months with pics for the aunts & uncles).
you are much better about mailing things than I am:)
Twitter: dakotapam