I am absolutely and unequivocally not a sender of mail.
Don’t get me wrong. I like the whole idea of snail mail, but what I do not like is having to go to the actual post office with my tiny crazies (AKA my children) to purchase stamps and actually send things, because have you ever been to the post office with young children? I mean, the post office isn’t exactly a pleasant place under the best of circumstances, but you throw in a couple of littles and well…I’ll just let you imagine the outcome.
With my disdain for mail sending, you probably won’t be too terribly surprised to learn that I have never sent out family Christmas cards either. I thought about it when we were newlyweds in the pre-kid days (i.e. when I actually had the time and energy for Christmas cards), but then I just felt a little weird about sending a picture of us and our dog, so I didn’t. Mostly though, I know myself and I didn’t want to start a tradition I wasn’t going to follow through with once kids arrived. Also, the thought of creating actual Christmas cards always seemed a bit daunting.
So here I am, the girl that doesn’t send Christmas cards (or let’s be real: any cards), and I get invited to team up with Tiny Prints for a post about (dun, dun, dun…) Christmas cards, because life is ironic like that. I thought about it for awhile, because I wasn’t sure I wanted to start a tradition I might not keep up with. Then I decided, why not give it a whirl and see if Tiny Prints could maybe, just maybe, make a card-sending-believer out of me.
So, I made our first Christmas cards ever and it was basically the easiest thing ever. I didn’t even have to search all over my computer for photos, because they give the option of simply uploading photos right from Facebook. All I had to do was upload some of the recent favorites I’d posted over there and I was ready to import them to my card. I actually sort of agonized over which card to choose, because I’m Type A and that’s what I do.
This card was the runner-up. I’m totally smitten with the modern, black and white simplicity of it, and while it wasn’t the card we ended up going with, I still took a screenshot of my draft because I sort of couldn’t let it go. I loved this one so much.
This card was the winner, because when I showed my husband the two options, he chose this. He said people like our kids better than us anyway, so they would probably want cards with more kid photos. He does have a point.
There were a ton of easy-to-add options for creating the cards (rounded corners, scalloped edges, matte or glossy finish…), but I went with classic, square matte. I like how the pattern on the back of the cards coordinates with the design on the front. There were also a ton of really cute patterned envelope liner options, but I’m indecisive, so I stuck with plain envelopes.
Perhaps the best feature though about creating and sending cards through Tiny Prints is the fact that for an additional fee, you can simply input all of the addresses for your friends and families and they’ll do all the envelope stuffing and addressing and card sending FOR YOU. Repeat with me: you don’t have to do ANYTHING. In the future I would totally go that route, because: post office hater. This time around though, I had to have them sent to me first so I could check them out and take photos for this post. The sacrifices I make for you people! Now that I know the quality is great, I would definitely just have Tiny Prints do all the work of sending for me next time.
And while I was in the Christmas spirit, I checked out some of the other Tiny Prints offerings and ended up having our annual Christmas ornament made. There were a ton of pretty ornaments, but I ended up going with a pretty glass one. I tried to take a photo of how lovely it looked with the light shining through it, but it didn’t translate. Just trust me. It’s real purdy.
Every year I choose a new family ornament for the tree and I always have the hardest time finding ones I like. I’ve never done a personalized one, so this was fun and it will be a great way to commemorate “that one year when I actually sent Christmas cards”. Fern was also pleased as punch when she saw the ornament and said she can’t wait to “hang our faces on the tree“. Ha!
So…long story short. Tiny Prints basically just saved Christmas…or at least my sanity surrounding having to choose a Christmas ornament and the hopes and dreams of the grandmas and great grandmas in our family who sort of die a little inside every year that we don’t send them Christmas cards. And who knows…since it was so easy, maybe this is one tradition I can actually stick with!
Check out all the Tiny Prints holiday goodness to see if maybe they can save your season too!
Love,
Lauren
Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Tiny Prints through their partnership with POPSUGAR Select. While I was compensated to write a post about Tiny Prints, all opinions are my own.
We have never managed to send out Christmas cards either. We talk about doing it every year, then procrastinate, then realize it is already December and thus too late. Our eldest son is 4 now and we are still waiting to morph into the kind of responsible people who can get this taken care of back in October.
Pictures of the kids are great, but do you know what II dislike? When people don’t include any pictures of the parents. It is just weird and also often confusing. I don’t always know the kids, particularly with cards from coworkers, etc.
I also really dislike it when people used to send a card with a photo of themselves plus the dog then they have a kid and they no longer include the dog. I always want to write back and say, “but what did you do with the poor dog???”
@Tarynkay – Oh man. You wouldn’t like our card then, because our dog totally didn’t make the cut – haha! She was in some of the family photos, but everyone else looked goofy in those, so I decided she wouldn’t have her feelings too hurt if she was left out ;).
Thanks so much for this post! I totally snagged up some cards for the first time ever (EEK!) with the 25% off. I also haven’t ever wanted to commit. Mostly because we never have any “good” photos of all of us together! But we recently moved across the country from family, and I thought it might be a nice thing to start.