Perfectly Personal™ Holiday Cards with Shutterfly

Thanks to Shutterfly for sponsoring today’s post. As always, all opinions are honestly my own.

One of my favorite holiday preparations each year is choosing and creating our Christmas card. Ever since photo cards became so popular, I have loved getting to put together some of our favorite pictures along with a brief written update of our year for friends and family to enjoy. For the past five years or so, we’ve gone with a flat card that has photos and text on the front or sometimes on both sides. This year, though, I found a 3/4 folded photo card on Shutterfly that I really love called Watercolor Snow Collage.

I liked the fact that it has three spaces for photos on the front as well as seven on the inside, which allows me to choose a total of ten favorite photos to share instead of being limited to just a few. I also like that there’s a sizable text block inside where I can write our yearly recap, letting our family and friends know about LC’s adventures in school, karate, and trumpet and about our new “family member” Fuzzy!

Being an artist myself, the watercolor design really appeals to me visually, and if you visited my home around the holidays, you’d know that the card goes perfectly with my décor. Hubby usually gives me free reign to choose whatever card is my favorite; his only stated preference is that he likes cards that actually say the words, “Merry Christmas.” So, when I showed him this design, he heartily approved. {You probably noticed that the lovely family in these photos looks nothing like us; that’s because we have a session with a photographer scheduled for this weekend, so I’m waiting on those pictures before I order our actual cards.}

Once I had chosen the cards, it just made sense to get the matching Watercolor Snowfall Address Labels to use when mailing them. I also found a set of gift tags that coordinated really well with the colors, font, and snowflakes on the card and couldn’t resist ordering those too.

While I was at it, I decided to order a few things to help with something I think is incredibly important to teach my son. The holidays can be overwhelming at times, with all the gifts and guests and food, but once it’s all over, I want to help him appreciate and show gratitude for the things he receives. I think the art of sending an actual thank you card is one we should never lose, and it’s something I want to instill in him from a very young age. It can be a tedious process writing thank-yous with a six year old. Often, I have him tell me what he wants the card to say and I write it for him, but Shutterfly made it even easier by allowing me to type in a personalized message that will work for any gift giver. Now, all he has to do is sign his name! Plus, I was able to add his school photo on the front and even a picture of him with Fuzzy on the inside.

He loves helping me put cards in envelopes and add the address labels, so I thought he’d also enjoy it if I ordered some special stickers with his photo on them too. It’s a cute and personal way to seal the thank you cards, and we can use them on other things too! There were tons of designs to choose from; some with photos and some without, and many coordinate with the various card designs.

I love how the products at Shutterfly are designed to work together for all your holiday and stationery needs. Whatever your design preferences are, there are cards, labels, stickers, gift tags, and more that you’re sure to enjoy.

And don’t forget, you can also personalize party invitations! For the past two years, we’ve planned a really fun, kid-focused New Year’s Eve full of activities for Little Crafter. It’s always been just us and my parents, but this year, LC wanted to know if we could do it at noon instead and invite some of his friends from school. I thought that sounded like a ton of fun, so we ordered some invitations {you can see I still gravitate to that watercolor look} to hand out. Since the circles, the colors, and the painted look coordinate with our Christmas things, our address labels are still a great fit.

So what about you? Have you started planning for your holiday stationery needs yet? If not, be sure to check out all the great designs {and the photo gifts too!} available at Shutterfly. I honestly love what we got and am excited to share it with our family and friends this season!