It's Shutterfly time!

Ok, so it's actually Christmas Time. But, of all the things I love about this delightful time of year and all the traditions it entails, one of my most favorite parts of it is the trading of Christmas Card Greetings with friends and family. It's always fun to get greetings via snail mail. This year Shutterfly is doing an awesome promotion for, through and with bloggers so I thought I'd join in, and get me some 50 free Christmas Cards.

I love their selection, pages and pages and pages of cards to chose from. We've ordered stacks of prints and a few photobooks through Shutterfly before, and always been so happy with the process and the quality of the final product.

All year long on our adventures we take pictures, and every once in a while we say, "That's Christmas card quality right there!" Of course, by the end of the year there are way to many photos for them ALL to be on our Christmas cards... but, we do like to do just a few pictures at least.

This is the one I am currently leaning towards. There are 6 pictures on this card, and I like that. I would have no trouble filling six picture holes up. I really like the green, red and black, but it comes in blue, red and brown too, and ALL different shapes and orientations and folded too.This one has ten pictures. I like it--but, I don't want to be greedy. Six pictures is perfectly acceptable for our little family... ten might just be four small pictures too many. The picture spaces are perfectly sized for face shots though, so they would be great for larger families, don't you think?! This was the other one I was looking at--I like it because the pictures are bigger, due to the lack of border. I saw it in red and blue too. See, if I'm going to spend the money on postage to send greeting cards to friends and family, I really prefer that my greeting card be mostly pictures, as opposed to borders and large spots of color. Because I am weird, that's why. That being said, the simple elegance of this one really calls to me. I love the black background, the font, the message... it's beautiful. So, I guess I'll have to put a few together and then give Frank the final say so I don't have to make the decision. :-) Since there are 800 some-odd styles to chose from for Holiday cards, I may very well end up with something completely different. I wouldn't put it past me to do that.


This time of year always brings thoughts of new things... specifically a new year. Every year I swear up and down I'm going to make my own calendar... then I get lazy, and forget until the middle of February and end up buying whatever is on clearance. This past year this actually worked in my favor-I got the awesomest shoe calendar ever complete with shoe quotes and a shoe-a-day. But, to be fair, that is the ONLY time it has ever worked in my favor. Mostly I end up with really weird calendars. Well, this year I am doing it! The coolest thing about my homemade calendar?! Ya know how in the summer we grumble, "It's so hot!! I wish it was winter!!" and then in the winter we grumble, "I miss camping!!! Is it summer yet?!" Ok, so maybe that's just our family's version of the human condition of always wanting what is not. My solution?! To make a calendar that has Summer pictures in the Winter, and Winter pictures in the Summer. Genius, I say. Genius. Some year I am going to compile my food pictures into a foodie calendar, complete with recipes, and gift them. Some other year I am going to take pictures of all my favorite shoes and do my own shoe calendar. And, they have different types of calendars, desk calendars, wall calendars, year-at-a-glance calendars, so whatever kind you need, you could personalize. These would also make perfectly thoughtful gifts for the person you love who has everything. The ideas for a personalized photo calendar are absolutely endless, and almost all of them would translate well to a personalized mug too, if you've already got a personalized calendar-don't even get me going on the mug possibilities!! Can you say Mother's Day and Father's Day?!


So, have you personalized mugs or calendars before?! What type have you done? My curiosity is quite piqued now.