Awesome holiday cards from Shutterfly.com!

Working through my Google Reader the other day I happened upon a post regarding a really neat offer that Shutterfly.com is doing for bloggers this year where you can get 50 photo Christmas cards for free!

Growing up my parents always sent out Christmas cards with a letter they would type up and they would often include a family photo (or our school photos to relatives). We'd get a bunch back as well and my dad would tape them up along the doorframe of the sliding glass door in our kitchen that leads to the backyard.

At one point my family started receiving photo cards from people when I was in high school, which I always thought were pretty neat as we were often getting cards from old family friends we hadn't seen in years, so it was neat to see how the kids of so and so had grown up since I last saw them.

One year while I was in college that my mom decided to give these types of cards a try and so my parents had me and my sister wear Santa hates and pose with the dog for the photo. While it was neat, my mom thought it was a bit expensive so I noticed she didn't it every year however the year hubby and I got married, mom did send out another photo Christmas card with a photo from our wedding of my parents and sister posed with hubby and I.

Last year I decided to look into it, as hubby and I are on our own and we had gotten our kitty the year before and I wanted try sending out a photo Christmas card with a photo of the 3 of us in front of our Christmas tree. I noticed the prices had gone down considerably from years prior so I gave it a go and really liked the idea. I also received a few photo Christmas cards from friends and family as well.

This year, I'm thinking we should take a picture of hubby and myself in front of the big Christmas tree up at church, showing off my 7-8 month baby belly! I really like the style of this photo card:

 

Although something like this one would be cute for someone with kids:

Shutterfly has a bunch of different photo cards to choose from - skinny vertical and horizontal ones, stationary size one, ones that are actual cards with your photo on the front as well a lot of others! Personally, I prefer the skinnier ones just because they take up less space on the fridge so I can fit more! They also offer a wide variety of themes which is nice, as while my family celebrates Christmas, I do have some friends that are Jewish as well so I prefer to send out a "Happy Holidays" card rather than wishing them a "Merry Christmas" since they don't celebrate it (not that they really care, but I think it's a courteous gesture).

Some of the photo cards I noticed you can also use to send out to people to announce an engagement, wedding, the birth of a baby, as well as various parties which is pretty neat! They also have calendars you can personalize with your photos (I might make these for Christmas gifts next year, since Jay will be almost one and we'll have plenty of photos to include!) as well other photo gifts like mugs, mousepads ornaments and more!

Their prices also seem pretty reasonable and you can totally customize the cards from the placement of the photo to the text, font, font size and more. Seems pretty simple! Another neat thing I noticed is if you look at the image near the top here, on the folded photo cards it seems you can really go all out on the inside of some as that one seems to have a time line with photos and text! How neat!

Do you send out Christmas cards?
Do you prefer to send and receive actual cards or do you like the photo card idea?

30 Days of Me: Day 22 - A Website

 

Well this is pretty vague...

Here are typical sites I check throughout the day though.

Usually, before I even get out of bed I pick up my phone and check my email (Gmail) since I usually get spam/junkmail/coupons sent to me in the middle of the night. Quickly I delete all the ones I'm not interested in and then scroll through the ones that are worth reading. Since I hate trying to view email images on my phone (cuz they tend to be big) and I'm not one for replying to an email on my phone unless I have to, I usually make a mental note to check those on the computer later.

Then I check out Twitter via the Droid app - to be honest, I never really "got" Twitter until I had a smartphone and then it just sorta clicked for me, as I never really saw or got the point of it before then.

Sometimes I go into my Google Reader app and read through all your new blog posts quickly as I wake up, making a note to actually login on a computer and comment on some of them later.

Once I'm up, I get food and then sit down and eat while I tend to go back into my email and read/reply to those messages from earlier and then login to Facebook and check out my notifications, respond if needed, and scroll down my friendslist newsfeed, commenting and "liking" on things as I go. (I realize that was a super long sentence).

From there I either go into Google Reader and comment on posts from earlier. Or I go to the VH1 VIP site and see if there's any new comments in the discussions on there. Or I go into the TCOYF site (Taking Charge of Your Fertility) and see if there's any new interesting posts or discussions in the pregnancy forums.

And from there I get kinda bored with the interwebz. Sometimes I'll come over here and work on a blog post or work on a post for either of my other blogs (see the top of the right hand column).

Another site I love is Wikipedia. Yes, I know it's not always 100% accurate, but you can definitely learn a lot on there! I tend to look up movies, tv shows and celebs/actors/musicians the most. It's need to start with one person, show or movie and end up on something completely different 20 minutes later, as you start reading and then a mention of something else in the article catches your attention and draws you in so you click that and you keep going deeper off the bunny trail!

What sites do you visit on a regular basis?