Confounding the Post Office Since 1975

I finally got my Grand Christmas Card Idea. I got all the pieces together and wrote them out and they are finally, finally, stamped, sealed and ready for delivery.

*whew*

Usually I'm pretty organized when it comes to Christmas cards. Last year's cards went out early, had enclosures, and were all sorts of cool. The cards were custom designed, including matching address labels, I did a Christmas newsletter, and there were other little enclosures, as well.

This year has seemed like such an ordeal from the get-go.

I didn't feel like doing a family portrait. At the time when that should have been getting done, I was in such a funk that I just felt there was no way anyone needed to see me on a Christmas card. No way!

So I started already at a disadvantage because I didn't know where to go or what to do other than I did not have family photos to include.

Mkay.

I love Christmas cards and the Christmas card season, so I knew it had to be something cool, and a standard had kind of been set, you know? But I was working with limited time and a limited budget.

Finally I hit on the idea of using prints from Busted Knuckle Photography to make Christmas cards. Not exactly Christmassy, but still cool, right? I'd run enough sample prints throughout the year that I was pretty sure I had enough prints to cover most of my mailing list without a problem. An idea was born!

I ended up in the dollar store where they just so happened to have packs of photo Christmas card blanks and I snatched up a few packs.

Then came rounding up all of my addresses. Because it can't be easy, and they're not all in one place. I consulted my address book, a couple of online accounts, and Stella (our GPS device) to get all of the addresses I used. I'm almost positive some people were missed, but I'm not entirely sure I feel bad about that.

Finally, I had to figure out where all the sample run photos ended up so that I could get them all in one place.

And then I had to find the card blanks again. Because I am Super Suave.


Once all the photos were inserted onto card blanks, it was time for addressing envelopes, signing cards, and putting everything together.

I used the leftover return address labels from last year. Reduce, reuse, recycle? Yeah, like that.

And finally, finally my Christmas cards were ready to be mailed! In time for most of them to arrive before actual Christmas Day. Because I'm awesome like that (yeah, right).


Strangely, though, I ended up with a lot of leftover stamps.

Weird.