Can you believe that it is almost time to start thinking about Christmas? Ok, so some crazy people have already started their Christmas shopping too, like my MOTHER! Crazy. It seems like every year I scramble at the last minute to get our Holiday cards out and mine end up looking like everyone’s card because they also waited until the last minute and went to Walgreens or CVS.
This year is going to be different because I am going to use an online card creation service called Purple Trail where you can create personalized holiday cards and hyperlink those keywords to. They have so many designs and card options to choose from so my cards will look different than everyone’s card this year. With each of the designs you can use it as is or you can kick it up a notch and use their ‘personalization’ mode move the photos, add other photos, change the text and the colors of the card. They even have a blank design option and you can create a card from scratch.
I am participating in a contest for Purple Trail and I am supposed to tell you the 5 ways that I make our holiday cards unique, but quite frankly I don’t do anything special. I just have a few rules that we have come up with over the years so I am going to pass those along to you.
- Don’t go to the ‘one hour photo’ type of joints so your card doesn’t look like everyone’s card. They don’t allow you to change where the image is on the card and they limit the amount of text you can input.
- Try and take a photo somewhere else instead of your living room, everyone has seen your living room and they don’t care to see it again.
- Don’t take your photo in front of your Christmas Tree, it is cliche and becomes ‘seasonal and dated’. Instead use a background that is nice enough to have displayed all year around such as outdoors at a park or just in your backyard.
- Don’t dress up your pet in a Santa hat, need I say more?
- Don’t have your family wear matching sweaters or all in the same color, that is soooo 1992 and not even necessary in this millennium. Let your families unique style show, even if your 3 year old is sporting stripes and polka dots together he/she will look cute anyway.
I am participating in a giveaway for PurpleTrail.com and it makes you eligible for a PurpleTrail gift code. Here is more information about the contest http://www.purpletrail.com/blogcontests
PurpleTrail is a print and online invitation service that allows users to create amazing invitations and cards. With thousands of designs and the ability to fully personalize them, PurpleTrail offers a unique blend of creativity, inspiration and customer service that can’t be beat.
This is a picture of me and Lily and she is about 6 months old. When I look back at her photos the hard times are still memories but as time goes by those memories of sleepless nights, short naps and breast feeding issues fade away and all I have left are the photographs of the good times. It is no secret that we have been trying to get pregnant again but we have not been successful, that includes the miscarriage this past December. I have actually been on the ‘fence’ about having another baby but when I look at all the wonderful photographs of Lily over the past years my heart just soars and I want another baby. I know that Lily is going to be a great big sister too because she is great with her new baby cousin Wyatt. She holds his hand and rubs his head when he is drifting off to sleep. She keeps asking me and Louis when we are going to get another baby and she put in her request for a girl baby, we will see what we can do!
