It's time to order your Christmas cards! And a giveaway!

It's that time of year again! Christmas time means time for celebrations, time for togetherness, time for giving, and time to start snapping pics and scouring Shutterfly for your favorite card to send out to friends and family!  I LOVE collecting and displaying my Christmas cards in our foyer each year.  I do treasure each of the photo cards that we receive & keep I most of them displayed on my refrigerator well into the new year.

As in years past, I've been asked by Shutterfly to review their new Holiday Card Collection and photo gifts and I'm more than happy to do so (hey, they give back to me, so it's the least I can do!)!  I've ordered from them for the past three Christmases for both our cards & our calendar gifts and have been more than pleased with the result, particularly the 5x7 stationery cards! They also have some new card options for their 2013 collection, including tri-fold 5x7 styles, as well as the ability to customize the back of the cards with various designs.  Their new styles are so varied that you're sure to find something that suits your fancy, including contemporary, whimsy, classic, merry & bright, religious, & photo basics.

I love the way their site is set up, because I can easily navigate and view only the type of cards that I'm searching for!  I can select the size (5x7) and also choose the number of photos that I would like to include. Christmas card selection this year is going to be particularly challenging, however.  Usually, I like to find one with four photos so that I can include one of each girl individually, as well as a photo of them together (that's the challenging part!!!), and then a family photo, but my girls just don't stop moving, so that does make things somewhat difficult! 

I'm a big fan of the solid-color backgrounds that really let the photos stand out...now to find the perfect photos...let me show you a few of my favorites (but keep reading through to get to the giveaway info!)!

This particular card has color options to add even more pizazz!

This card has a very "natural" feel to it & would really let the faces in the photo stand out!

I love the grey with the black and white pics!

I love how the black makes the photo POP on this card!

I love the "country" feel of this one with the berries and branches, but the classy look of the script.

Obviously I had a hard time choosing just a few of my favorites to show you!  There's just so much to love! The newest designs just seem so sleek and contemporary, but still timeless and traditional at the same time. 

Ok, and now here's the part for YOU! The contest! Shutterfly has graciously offered to give one of my awesome readers a code for $50 off your total stationery & gift order plus free shipping!  To enter, all you have to do is click through to the Shutterfly page and comment with the name of your favorite holiday card!  The contest will end on Tuesday, November 26th & I'll let the birthday girl (Haddy!) choose the winner that day before bedtime! Good luck & happy card-hunting!

How about a FREE treat?

Hey readers!  If you know me, you know I love a great deal - and nothing is better than free, right?  On Monday (11/19) and Tuesday (11/20), you can get your very own personalized greeting card for free from treat.com (sister site of shutterfly.com, specializing in greeting cards)!  Whatever your greeting card needs might be right now -- from birthdays, to Christmas, to anniversaries, you can find a card for it on treat.com!  Simply create your card on their site & use the code TREATBLOGR at checkout!  That's all there is to it!  So what are you waiting for?

 

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas & a GIVEAWAY!

My favorite holiday is quickly approaching & it's once again time to start thinking about Christmas cards!  I hear all of you haters out there saying nasty things about me making a Christmas post before Halloween time has crossed many people's minds, but OH WELL!  I can't help it! I love Christmas & this year will be especially exciting because Hadley is at such a great age & she will really start to "get it!"  She picked up on our excitement last year as a one year old, but now, she is fully conversational & totally understands most things we talk about with her, so I have no doubt that she will be on a massive overstimulated Christmas high just like her Mama!

I've been asked by Shutterfly to review their new Photo Christmas Cards and I'm more than happy to do so!  I've ordered from them for the past two Christmases and have been more than pleased with the result, particularly the 5x7 stationery cards! I love the way their site is set up, because I can easily navigate and view only the type of cards that I'm searching for!  I can select the size (5x7) and also choose the number of photos that I would like to include.  We will probably need to have at least 4 so that we can include one photo of each of the girls, plus one of them together, as well as one of the whole family.  I'll include pics to a few of my favorites below!  I'm a big fan of the solid-color backgrounds that really let the photos stand out...now to find the perfect photos...

Don't forget to check out Shutterfly's Special Offers Page, as well, for the latest deals and steals on their awesome goodies!

Oh, and a giveaway...Shutterfly has graciously offered to give one of my readers a credit for $50 off their total order (not including shipping & cannot be combined with other offers)!  Please comment here with your email address if you would like to be entered to win! The winner will be randomly drawn on October 29th!

Christmas Cards!

Can I just say how much I LOVE Christmas? I have always been one to be really excited about the holidays (pretty much from Halloween through the New Year) ever since I was a little kid, but I have to say that this year is probably the most excited I've been in a long, long time. Five of the past six Christmases have been marked by sadness, emptiness, and longing for a child. And then last Christmas, I was mommy to a one-month old, so while I do remember bits and pieces of it, it more or less passed in a sleepless blur.

But not this year! This year, we will have a one-year-old who loves to play with paper and boxes and can really pick up on the emotions (excitement!) of others, particularly Mommy & Daddy! Although I've already started listening to Christmas music with Hadley, we're most excited to start decorating the house, watching Christmas movies and cartoons, and making our own Christmas traditions.

I'm also really excited that we'll be sending out photo Christmas cards again this year! I've already started scouring through our recent pics (and we even purposely took a couple photos while we were on our vacation) to find the perfect ones for our cards! I’ve been browsing the cards on Shutterfly and there are so many options, my head is spinning! I think these two are my favorites, but we will probably want to put in one family pic and one or two of Hadley, so maybe something like this or this or this would be better! I'm also planning on making photo calendars for Christmas gifts, too! ☺

And now onto the fun stuff! Because I have such great readers & took the time to share about my great experience with Shutterfly, they have sent me 3 codes to give away to my readers, good for 25 free photo cards! (Shipping may still apply, but I know it is very affordable!) If you would like to enter, simply leave a comment below telling me your favorite thing about Christmas (favorite song, movie, cookie, food, memory, tradition, etc! Anything!). I will use a random number generator to select three winners on November 28th! Good luck!

Christmas!

Can I just say how much I LOVE Christmas? I love everything about it and I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve already broken out the Christmas music a time or two, much to the dismay of my husband (but hey – at least I listen to it privately since I know how much it irks him to listen to it any time before Black Friday)!

This year is especially exciting for us because it will be the first Christmas in five years that will NOT be marked by sadness, emptiness, and longing for a child. Don’t get me wrong, I always managed to find a way to enjoy the holiday season (it is, after all, my favorite time of year), but I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that there was always something missing – that Child-like wonder that comes with Christmas is hard to find when a) all you can think about is having a child to share that joy with and create family traditions with and b) a very special baby IS the reason that we celebrate Christmas in the first place.

I remember last year being particularly depressing because, for a short time, we had been pregnant & the thought of family Christmas cards joyously passed through my head, but then our loss shattered all of that & I was once again feeling bummed that we were just sending out plain, generic Christmas cards….friends encouraged me to send them out as a family of two, but it just didn’t seem right to me given that we had no big event to share with everyone.

So this year, we’re very excited to actually make Christmas cards to announce the birth of our precious little miracle, Hadley. I’ve been browsing the cards on Shutterfly and there are so many options, my head is spinning! I think these two are my favorites & once we get our pictures done and see what we have to work with, I’ll be able to make a better decision, since I need to figure out the wording & how much we’ll be able to fit in! And once she’s big enough, I’ll take pics every month & make photo calendars for Christmas gifts, too! ☺

Check it all out! There’s a new promotion where Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly http://bit.ly/sfly2010 !!!

Baby Giveaways!!

I've stumbled across a ton of baby giveaways, so I wanted to throw them out there for all my mommies & mommies-to-be!

Happily Southern is giving away a Planet Wise wet/dry bag from Planet Wise (ends 8/28).

Grovia diaper goodies at The Cloth Diaper Whisperer

TinyTush hemp fitted at 29Diapers

One Little Mister is giving away a $20 Gift Card to Bellalojo Baby (ends 9/5).