My favorite non professional printer is Shufferfly. They do the best job of anyone on the market, in my opinion. We have gotten our Christmas cards through them for many years, but we’ll be doing something a little different this year.
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| Our family photo is kind of pathetic… I admit. It’s like how contractor’s houses are in disrepair, or cleaning people’s houses are dirty. It’s an occupational hazard. |
If you know get to know me, you realize pretty quickly that I pretty much dislike boundaries, and I’ve started to get a little frustrated with the templates on your standard photo site. What if I love a template and I don’t want it to say Merry Christmas? Or what if I want to write down the names of everyone in our family and they don’t fit? (true story, it happens past 4 kids). Or what if I want an extra photo opening? Or I love the pattern but not the color?
Recently I discovered the ultimate in all things printed. My awesome supplier gives me a blank shape to print onto and I can print whatever I want on a huge selection of shapes, sizes, folds and paper types. How cool is that?
My son was in the hospital earlier this year and I printed my own thank you cards. It was incredibly therapeutic. When they arrived I was so impressed – the quality is better than what you would find at Halmark.
I loved that my “thank you” could be written on something I made and was exceptional quality. It honestly really helped me to give back something of myself, even if it was small.
A little while later I was asked to make an invitation for a church event. This one is an original design and it was a lot of fun to make. If you want to get me talking just say, “Custom printed cards.”
I had been planning on offering Christmas cards (or Holiday Cards) this year anyway because I love them, but I had no idea how excited I would be about it. Here’s a little case study in how incredible customization can be.
Kim is an awesome client of mine and I am always so excited to work with her and her family. After she picked out which prints she wanted, she was really excited to get Christmas cards. This was the design she was really drawn to (you can check out the whole collection here).
If you did go the Shutterfly route, that would be it – it would be this or nothing. But Kim wasn’t 100% happy with it. She wanted something more “Christmassy.” She also wanted more images on the card – so she could have one of each child and one of them together.
This is where your friendly photographer comes in. Because I was printing on blank paper, we could change anything. We switched colors to red and green, added some openings and moved some words around. She was even able to choose what kind of paper to print on.
Here’s what she wrote, “Thanks so much for the pics and cards. They are all great – right down to the packaging!! I can’t believe I have my Christmas Cards done in November. I am ecstatic!!!!! Will have to make this an annual ritual. :)”
I agree – her cards turned out beautifully and they’re a great representation of who they are as a family. I love it! To create your own cards, contact me by clicking here.
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