Shutterfly Christmas and Holiday Cards (And A Giveaway!)

The nice folks over at Shutterfly contacted me this month to see if I would be interested in using them for our Christmas cards again this year. I, of course, said yes! Last year they did a great job on our cards and it made it much easier for us!

I thought I knew what card design I would use last year (and even wrote about it here) but I ended up picking out a different design that fit our photo better. I love how simple the process is. The hardest part is deciding on what design to use. This year we will be using Shutterfly again, thanks to the ease and simplicity of the process.

I’ve been checking out the Christmas Cards and I love so many of the designs again this year. There are so many options and I love the sorting features available. I was able to narrow my choices (but still have a LOT of options left) by changing what size I wanted and what type of card or even colors I wanted.

I love the fun design of this card (but feel we’d need our picture taken on the beach too!):

Sweet Scribbly Letters

I also like the design of the Picking The Tree card. It reminds me of a long time ago when people actually went and cut down their own Christmas tree. We just drag ours down for the attic and put it together now!

Picking The Tree

If you like to send cards at other times in the year, Shutterfly has you covered there too. They have a large selection of greeting cards including, Thanksgiving, New Years, Birthday, Valentines and every day cards.

If cards aren’t really your thing, check out their photo gifts and calendars. They make great gifts for Christmas or other events throughout the year.

Want to win some free cards from Shutterfly?? They have given me 3 sets of 25 cards to give away to my readers!
Here’s what you need to do to enter:
Go check out Shutterfly’s Holiday Cards and let me know what your favorite design is. It is as simple as that!
Random.org will choose three winners for me.
The giveaway will end at midnight Wednesday, November 2.
Good luck!

Shutterfly is offering me 50 free holiday cards for my review. All opinions are my own. Are you a blogger? Want a chance at 25 free cards this holiday season? Register here: http://goo.gl/DDw7Q

Middle of April?!?!?!

It is almost the middle of April and I haven’t posted even once yet! How did that happen?!?!?! Well, there are a few reasons….but mostly I have been getting ready for a craft show. I have been doing lots of sewing and when I’m not sewing, we’ve been outside playing a lot, trying to enjoy the nice weather. I have taken some pictures and plan to share some crafts and other things with you…just as soon as I can find some time to sit down and write! I really like blogging, but it is one thing on my list that apparently gets the shaft when I have a lot going on. I promise to try and get some posts up!

Our Shutterfly Christmas Card

In November, I told you about Shutterfly’s great products and how they were helping bloggers get free cards this year. After finally deciding on a card layout, I ordered our Christmas cards. (I ended up picking out a card different from the ones that I had originally narrowed it down to.) I love how they turned out. Big Monkey especially loved having Shutterfly do our cards this year. It meant he didn’t have to sign his name a jillion times to all of our cards. I did all the work of addressing, stuffing, stamping and mailing out the cards. (This is the same as every other year and my choice.) I love how our cards turned out and how easy it was to do. I would definitely consider using Shutterfly again for our Christmas cards.

Our Shutterfly Christmas Card (Name section edited of course)

This is a photo of our card…that I edited….Sorry there isn’t a better picture of it. But the quality of the card is great in real life!

Free 8×10 Collage Print!!!

Now through Saturday, November 27th, you can get a free 8×10 collage print from Walgreens.

When you check out, enter code: THANKSGIVING to get your free print. (Choose in store pick up and pay nothing!!) Christmas is coming up and these collages can be a great gift with a frame!

I’m printing up a collage for Big Monkey of the golf tournament that we just helped put on!

Shutterfly-More Than Prints!

Did you know that Shutterfly offers more than just prints? Shutterfly offers prints, invitations, calendars, address labels and mugs-just to name a few!

This year we will be using Shutterfly to make our Christmas cards. This is the first time we have used Shutterfly for our Christmas cards but I have made calendars with them before. (And will likely do so again, as this is GrandMom yearly Christmas request!) The hardest part of the Christmas card decision each year (other than the photo selection) is deciding on the card layout and design. I would like to say that Shutterfly makes it easy for you and they do! (The hard part is deciding the design you want to use because there are SO many great options!)

I have previously designed my own card ( a bit tough but it was cool) but this year will be MUCH easier with Shutterfly. I am leaning towards the Flat Card designs. I am really loving these two cards:

Top Ten Memories Card

Love 2010 Card

Both cards have great options for giving some updates on our family. I think this is a great option instead of some lengthy family update letter!

Check out Shutterfly for all your Christmas photo gift needs (and more!). They even have personalized gift giving tags! You could have a perfectly matching themed Christmas this year! Grab your Christmas photo cards, address labels, holiday party invites and gift tags-all in matching themes!

Shutterfly is offering me (and other bloggers) 50 free holiday cards for my review. All opinions are my own. If you are a blogger too, check out this link if you are interested in the program too!

Random Crap Again!!!

The woot! box!!!!!

Amazingly, I somehow managed to snag my second “bag of crap” and it arrived today!! I was, of course, very excited to see that my box had arrived two days earlier than expected. I had been monitoring the woot community site to see what other people had been receiving. It appeared I was likely to get a PGA Hat and PGA sling backpack, as well as possibly some outdated calendars.

My "Bag" of Random Crap!

I did in fact get the PGA Hat and PGA Sling Backpack. I also got five outdated calendars (The Brain Game desktop calendar for 2010. I’m thinking this could still be fun. I’m also thinking that GG&GG would probably like it for the games and puzzles.)
Here is a rundown of what I got:
4 bags of Texas Air
1 PGA Hat
1 Shirt.woot size small shirt (I already own this shirt in a medium….maybe we’ll use this one for a craft project)
1 PGA Sling Backpack
2 HDMI Bendable connectors
1 iphone 3g/3gs case
5 The Brain Game Desktop Calendars 2010
3  pulsating sprinkler heads

We will be using the HDMI connectors, it appears. Big Monkey has requested the PGA Sling Backpack. I will use the shirt for something. I will also be keeping 2 The Brain Game Calendars. If you have any interest in the rest, let me know…it might be your lucky day….or everyone might end up with a 2010 Brain Game Calendar for Christmas!!! Overall, I still think Random Crap is fun if you can manage to snag one. This one makes up for my last one for sure. 

Random Woot Shirt Again!

I told you, I can’t help. If I have enough money in my Paypal account, I will try and order a random shirt whenever they are become available. A couple weeks ago, Random Woot Shirt came up again…I don’t even know how I managed to get one, but I did!

The Man Who Ended The War

This is my newest shirt. Sadly I had to have it explained to me. Anyhow, it is at least a wearable shirt. Maybe one to take camping.

I Won

Awhile back, (Like in May!) I won a giveaway from Michelle at Someday Crafts. I got a gift certificate to Shannon’s Etsy shop, Staker Sensations.

Go take a look around at her shop, she has lots of fun stuff. (Sorry but her shop is actually closed right now due to some machine problems. So instead you can check out her blog instead.) I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to get but finally picked out something for Little Monkey’s room. I picked out a fun saying that hopefully Little Monkey will learn to like too.

After having it in the house for awhile, we finally got the chance to put it up on Little Monkey’s wall. I had planned to put it up at the top of the wall all the way down one wall but it ended up being a bit longer than that. We ended up cutting each phrase and making it a separate line. It worked out great and I love it.

Vinyl Wall Art

We ended up taking down the pictures and Fire Department flag that were on the wall and moving them to another. I really like how all of it turned out. Both Michelle and Shannon were great and easy to work with.

Shannon also sent me a cute little black bird. I put it up on the door to our pantry. It is very cute. I know if I want more vinyl, I will be checking with Shannon first to see if she can make it for me.

Cute little birdie

Best Pops Card

I don’t know how I even stumbled across this idea but I was very glad to have found it. (Now Pops also knows that it certainly wasn’t my idea!) It is very hard if not impossible to find “Pops” or “Grammy” cards at the store. Homemade is better anyhow, so here  is a homemade (with some help) option.

The site has almost all the work done for you. You just have to print their images, cut, fold, tape (or glue) and sign. It is a bit more work than a store bought card I suppose but your “Pop” or “Pops” will love it.

Here is how ours turned out:

Tootsie Pop

Opened up! (See Woody's Head peeking in!)

Random Crap Neat-Oh! Picnic Basket

Neat-Oh! Picnic Basket

When I got my Bag of Random Crap, I received one of these Neat-Oh! Picnic Baskets. As I was reading on many of the posts about the bags of crap recently, I learned that MANY people got a picnic basket. Normally I would say that we do not have a need for a picnic basket. And honestly I think that I probably still true. I did, however, find a great use for this picnic basket.

As you can see in the picture, it is a little box but it can be unzipped and laid out flat to use as your picnic table in the grass. All of the flat surfaces are water-resistant. I decided that this would make it easy to use for a pool bag. Generally we do not need a pool bag but one day we were heading over to a friend’s house to swim with them and hang out. I put the picnic basket together and added in my swimsuit, the kids’ swimsuits and towels for everyone. The best part was after we were done swimming, we changed back into our clothes and put our wet suits and wet towels in the picnic basket. Since it is water-resistant, there was no worries about the water coming through and getting the car wet too.

So if you have one of these zip up picnic baskets from woot! and you don’t know what to do with it, maybe this idea will help you out. For now we will hold onto our picnic basket to use for going to friends’ pools or to splash parks!