Thanksgiving is around the corner and that means Christmas is on it’s way so you better hurry up and decide on your holiday card ideas!
As a society, we have buried ourselves with responsibilities, and we do not have as much time for friends and family as we once did. Because of that, I feel it’s important to still communicate your thoughts of one another so that people know you do care!
Recently, I was getting the mail of an older lady who was out of town last holiday season, and I was shocked at how many Christmas cards she received daily! It was old school class and charm. We actually only received about four and one was from the Chiropractor and another from a Dentist!
Every year, I usually make my own. On Thanksgiving night, I usually allot time to put up my Christmas tree and other decorations. To me, that is also the perfect time to take 20 minutes to snap some photos appropriate for a family Christmas Card.
Last year, the card above was the shot I chose, but I applied a sort of “Toon” app to the photo which turned us into cartoons, which is actually fitting! (Because we are funny like that.)
I simply uploaded the picture to photoshop.com and then chose “edit.” From there, you simply click the “Sketch” button on the left…and it gives you a few options to choose from.
If you do not have the photoshop.com available, some cell phone photo programs or cameras have the same option. Chances are, some one you know has this and can do it for you within a few minutes.
Next, you just choose whatever verbiage you wish your card to say…and you could do this with either Photoshop or even a simple Paint program.
Then, after your finished product is downloaded to a disk, you simply go down to a place like Walgreen’s or Costco, that usually has a photo printing machine with apps for greeting cards. (Or just print from home on card stock.) You can choose from whatever selections you want there, and they can print your cards within an hour!
On my cards, I already had the lettering added on Photoshop, so all I had to do was have them print the photo postcards for me for about $10, and I was done!
I’ve even made Jazzy pose in a Santa suit before for my Christmas cards.You don’t have to cheese your own grill in your photos! If there is a great winter shot you took and were proud of, or maybe a really old Christmas photo, you could reproduce, that would be great as well!
The point is to have fun and connect, and more inportantly, make someone feel special that you went old school and thought enough of them to use a stamp! Just sayin.
This is just a fun activity to keep in mind as Thanksgiving approaches!
-November 18, 2012
–SDS
