Magnolia Mamas : Christmas Cards

Showing posts with label Christmas Cards. Show all posts

Friday, December 16, 2016

Christmas Cards

In our house, we love Christmas cards! It's really one of my very favorite Christmas traditions and something we are excited about every single year. In the past, Jen and I have planned a picture day, planned our outfits, gotten our families together, and taken pictures of each other's families so we have some great Christmas card photos. Well, that was the plan this year until both of our hubbies decided to participate in the no-shave-November challenge at work.

I prefer the clean shaven look, so that postponed pictures a few weeks and then we had a hard time coordinating schedules between traveling husbands and kid's activities. That combined with the constant rain we were having had me at the first week of December with no pictures taken, no cards ordered and I was starting to stress out!

I had one bright spot though...we had plans to dress up for our annual visit to ride the Pink Pig/visit Santa so I knew that might be my only chance of getting the kids all in one place for photo. That would have to replace the family photo this year!

Thankfully, right before leaving to meet our friends to ride the Pink Pig and see Santa I put them on the porch (it was still raining!) and snapped a few photos. 102 frames to be exact so that I could get this!

But, in full disclosure and just to keep things real, I included some of our funny out-takes on the back of the card because #RealLife.

Let me tell you, the good thing about waiting until the last minute to order cards is that there are lots of great deals! I have ordered from a lot of different places in the past, but this year price won out! 70% off is hard to beat so I ordered our cards and because I was saving so much I paid for overnight shipping so I could get them to me ASAP.

They ended up arriving a day earlier than I was expecting and I couldn't stand to wait so I stayed up late that night to get them addressed and ready to go. Sitting by our Christmas tree, sipping wine and addressing cards to our love ones, both near and far, made for a really special night. My whole house was quiet because everyone else was asleep, but seeing and writing each name on the 100+ envelopes made me stop and think about how each person or family had come into our lives and made an impact on our family in one way or another.

Every day when the mail comes I rush to our mailbox to check for new cards! We keep a basket on the kitchen counter and fill it with all of the Christmas cards we receive each day. I love looking through them, the kids love looking through them when they get home from school, and the Mr. comes home from work and loves looking at our new cards each day.

In full disclosure, there were a TON of out-takes to get to the one and only usable photo for our cards, so I thought it would be fun to share some of those funny shots.

Walker, our pup, was super excited to be included in the photo shoot. So much so that he was giving kisses every chance he got.

However, when he wasn't giving kisses, he was pretty much over our photo shoot and yawning nonstop.

Apparently, we were interrupting his afternoon nap time. I couldn't blame him though. The rainy day had me yawning, too!

And if he wasn't yawning, his eyes were closed. I think he was hoping if he closed his eyes we would all just go away so he could continue his nap.

When he was picture ready, the kids were not. Especially Boo-Boo. He looked through the pictures with me the next day and when he saw this next one he commented, "I guess I was really tired in that one." Yep. He was totally thrilled and Blondie, too!

And that, my friends, is pretty much how we all felt about Christmas card photos this year. I'm so thankful that I made them take pictures to continue this tradition, but I'm hoping that next year Jen and I have he forethought to do photos ahead of time and not be so rushed at the last minute!

We hope everyone has an awesome weekend! Jen's kids are done with school after today and mine have a few more days next week then we are officially on Christmas break!!!! Woo Hoo!!!

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Creating the Perfect Christmas Card

Today I'm talking all about Christmas cards!! I know I'm not alone in the following statement: Christmas cards are absolutely my very favorite thing to send and receive in the mail! I really, really love looking in the mailbox each day during the month of December and finding cards from our friends and family members. I keep them in a basket in our kitchen and every evening after dinner the kids like to browse through to see the new cards we received that day and it's fun for us all to see smiling faces of the ones we loved and cherish, especially this time of year.

I also love planning outfits for our Christmas card photos. It doesn't take much to make me happy and coordinating outfits are just one of those simple little things that make me smile. I love to coordinate my kids, but on very rare occasions (like Christmas card photos) I can get the Mr. to play along, too.

I picked and planned all of our outfits and immediately the complaining from everyone began. Someone didn't like their leggings, someone else didn't like their hair. Jen usually takes our pictures, but this year we just couldn't coordinate everyone's schedules so my sweet mother-in-law was kind enough to come over and deal with my neurotic self wanting to capture the perfect photo to send out to over 100 of our friends and family members. There were a lot of funny out-takes and our dog, Walker, chose this day to go totally crazy.

There was a lot of bribing involved for the kids (you'd be amazed how well they smile when I promise them candy), but I was still convinced we didn't have anything worth using.

There is nothing like trying to act happy in a picture when all you really want to do is pull your hair out, because no one is cooperating. However, when I started to look through them I realized they were not professional photos, but there were some really good ones. I ended up being really pleased with them so it was all worth it in the end!

When I sat down to check out all of the options that Minted had to offer I was really impressed. Not only did they have a huge selection of unique designs from their community of independent artists, but I also loved how I could customize the designs and choose from unique die-cut shapes to truly make our cards our own.

Because I went totally nontraditional with our colors I was a little nervous that I would not be able to find a card to coordinate, but I was so wrong. There were a lot of options and for almost every design I looked at, Minted offered it in several different colors so I could pick what would look best with our photos. I had almost settled on one when I came across this.

It was perfect. The colors were perfect, the wording was perfect, and our photo fit on the card perfectly. I quickly edited the text to add our name and moved on to the back. You can select several options for the back like photos, messages or just a solid color, but I loved the idea of having another photo with the kids' names and ages.

I did not take advantage of the FREE matching envelope design and recipient addressing, but I'm kind of wishing I did. Yes, you read that correctly. This year, all cards are available with FREE recipient addressing. Talk about a time saver! Oh well...instead my hand got a good workout addressing all of ours!

I was really surprised by how quickly my cards arrived. It took only a few days and they were here, so if you haven't ordered yet, don't worry! There is still time. I was shocked, actually, by how fast they got here and even more pleasantly surprised by the quality when I took my first look. Minted's signature paper is really thick with a cotton texture and the colors and photo printing were just as I expected.

I am so thrilled about sticking these cards in the mail and can't wait to fill our basket with cards from all of our loved ones.

A BIG thank you to Minted and Savvy Sassy Moms for the opportunity to create cards that I truly love. All opinions are my own.

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Holiday Traditions: Christmas Cards

I love this time of year! It is so fun and we've had a blast sharing some of our favorite holiday traditions with The Cutes. One of my favorite things about this time of year is receiving all the holiday cards. Call me cheesy, but it's just plain fun to open that mailbox and find something other than junk mail or bills.

The Cutes get excited about it too, and love running to the mailbox to see which ones we have received that day.

We get the cards and then put them on display in our home for us to enjoy all season. Some of these sweet faces we see a lot and some we don't get to see often enough, but it brings a smile to all of our faces to see all of our loved ones and how much their families have changed or grown over the last year.

Just as much fun is also getting to send out our own cards. I have saved all of our cards from the last few years and had them framed. During the holidays its fun to see how much our own family has changed over the years.

In year's past I have designed and made my own, but this year Minted is getting all my love. I was browsing Minted and was instantly sucked in to how many gorgeous options they have (and how easy they make putting together a card), that this busy, tired, pregnant mommy could not resist!

It was really hard to narrow down my favorites! There are so many adorable choices with everything from photo cards to cards that have the trendy gold foil added to them (which is just plain gorgeous!) to cards that allow you to convert your child's own drawings to them. I had the hardest time picking just one!

Minted must realize that their website is overwhelmingly too pretty, and does their best to help you make an easy decision. Once I uploaded the photo I wanted to use and saved it to my account, the website automatically gave some suggestions on what might look best. Talk about helpful!

I was able to tweak and save all of my favorites, and then show Mr. Cute and The Cutes for a family vote. One of the neat things about Minted is that it allows you to customize your card (color, shape, text, etc.) so each card feels unique. We landed on something a little different for this year, but perfect for our travel loving family.

And to take the easiness one step further, they had to go ahead and offer up addressing all of my envelopes for me (currently free!!!). Seriously, who is going to pass that up?!? My hand is currently thanking me as it's eyeing that stack of 100+ cards.

When the cards arrived this week, we could not have been more pleased. We were so excited to see what we had chosen in real life and love it! The quality is superb, and the design and shape is just as adorable as we thought it would be.

The Cutes loved being able to add our card to our collection! They also loved being able to put "the stickers" on them, deliver them to the post office "all by themselves", and help pass them out to our friends and family. With everything becoming so electronic and fast paced it is so nice to have a little holiday tradition that is slightly old school, but still timeless. I hope my little ones remember how fun the holiday cards are, and we can enjoy this experience together for years to come!

What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?

***I received these products as part of the Savvy Sassy Moms Product Scout Group. All opinions are my own.***

Magnolia Mamas

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