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{Holiday Resource} How to Get FREE Christmas Cards

Personalized holiday cards are so much more meaningful – but they can get expensive really quickly. Use these deals to get tons of beautiful cards to customize, and fill with your favorite holiday memories! For some great holiday photo ideas, check out my very favorite photographer on her Facebook page – Amber Miller Photography!

  • MyPublisher: Get 10 of their amazingly gorgeous holiday photo cards for FREE! The quality of the products from MyPublisher are really impressive – thick paper, beautiful color. Set up an account before you get started, then at check out use code HAPPY10FREE to get them FREE, no shipping, no other purchase required!
  • The Gallery Collection: Build your own FREE card sample pack! Choose the pre-made all occasion set, pre-paid holiday edition pack, or choose your own very favorite 6 cards from anywhere on their site! Free Shipping, super easy to order!
  • InkGarden: Choose from 10 Stationary Cards or 20 Photo Cards for only a $1.00!!  Use code HOLIDAYCARDS at checkout, which gives you a $10.99 credit. This will give you either one of the card packages for just a buck, plus shipping. This is an amazing way to stock up on personalized photo cards at a deep discount! You’ll only pay a few bucks for shipping, so you get beautiful photo cards cheaper than a box of discount cards at Walmart. Love it.
  • FREE Photo Holiday Cards: Choose from 10 flat or folded holiday cards with Free Envelopes. Order today, and save 50% off higher quantities. Products are free, add your own photos and text shipping starts at $4.60.
  • Click Here to create yours now!

That’s a total of 50 photo cards you can get – and even if you order all of the sets, and pay a bit of shipping, you’ll be getting 50 of your own customized cards for less than $10 bucks! You can barely buy a basic box of cards at Hallmark for that price – and photo cards are so much more fun! Add another $10 bucks, and you can add 10o fun holiday postcards, a customized address or business stamp, and cute holiday labels too! Check out the bonus deals….

BONUS:

  • 100 FREE Holiday Postcards: Get your message across this holiday season with customizable postcards! Use them as holiday cards, invitations or announcements for home and business use. Mailing services available. Matching envelopes available at checkout. Create today and receive in as few as 3 days. Printing is free, shipping starts at $7. Click Here.
  • 140 FREE Holiday Labels: Spread the cheer with every letter you send! Stick your labels on festive holiday letters, cards and packages. Choose from thousands of designs, upload photos or create caricature return address labels. Create up to 7 caricatures of your family, friends and pets! Use labels as To-From stickers, gift tags & more! Printing is free, shipping & processing starts at $3.07. Click Here.
  • FREE Holiday Stamp: Choose from over a dozen designs and make holiday labeling a tad easier this year. Choose from red, black or blue ink. Printing is free, shipping & processing starts at $5.67. Click Here.

Ink Garden

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Posted by on November 24, 2011 Filed Under: Freebies, Holidays | No Comments

Spread “Picture Perfect” Holiday Cheer this Year!

Tiny Prints 2011 Holiday Cards

Tiny Prints = Huge Smiles!

Ohmyheck – I could not be more in love with the amazing selection of Holiday Card designs from Tiny Prints this year. I thought I loved ’em last year…. But, unbelievably, this year is even better! I love that there is such a wide range of choices… From classic styles to modern designs, retro color combos to bright pops of cheerful color. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, can find the perfect card to celebrate their family’s personality!

Let me share a few of my favorites….

How fun are these round ornament style Christmas Cards? This one is called Booming Blossoms – and I am so excited to order these! What a great idea – this makes it much easier for the recipient to display the card you send, and totally sets it apart from all of the others that they’ll be getting. These start as low as $1.59 each – Considering even a cheap card at Hallmark is a couple bucks, this is an amazing value, right? Add your favorite family photo for a sweet card that everyone will love!

This design is so classic and pretty… Love it! It’s called Banner of Dreams. And here is another cool feature to check out when searching for your perfect card – when you click on a card, like this one, you get several options of styles to choose from. So, if you love this design, but like the round style above – you can have both! This card can print in the circle, 5×7 flat, 5×7 folded, and more. So you can totally customize a card to be exactly what you want it to be, which is totally amazing.

Another super fun card – This Neon Noel is so creative, and I love the image of the cat in the middle of the text!! Very bright and cheerful, this would brighten up anyone’s dreary winter day, right? Another feature to check out when shopping for Holiday Cards on Tiny Prints is the side bar on the left – choose how many photos you want to use, the style of card you like best, the theme you prefer – and it’ll narrow down the super expansive selection to the picks it knows will be your favorites.

Which one is YOUR favorite?

Shop the Holiday Card assortment at Tiny Prints today, and find the perfect card to share your favorite family photo this Holiday season! You’ll have so much fun putting it all together with the easy peasy online card creating process on their site – and your friends and family will have so much fun opening them!

More Holiday Fun:

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Posted by on November 13, 2011 Filed Under: Holidays | No Comments

Shutterfly Family Photo Days – Fun Tips & Free Holiday Cards!

Paullin Family Pic 2010Getting Perfect Family Photos…

Everyone has that one perfect family photo. The one where everyone is smiling, the lighting is perfect, no one has a weird lamp growing out of their head…. You know, perfect. And you try again every year to get it right again, with no luck. At the holidays, you’re often sending out cards to people you seldom see during the year, so you want to show your family in the best possible way – it’s a lot of pressure, right?

The holidays are getting closer every minute…

As you can see from my new little gadget in the sidebar, there are only 47 days, 3 hours, 14 minutes, and 22 seconds until Christmas! That might seem like a lot of time, but it’ll be here before you know it. And the very best tip to have a relaxing, peaceful, and enjoyable holiday season it to get things done early. One of the big reasons I hear from people for putting off creating amazing personalized holiday cards is that they don’t have a great photo to use. Well – I’m here, armed with some great tools from Shutterfly, to save the day!

Holiday {or any day!} Photo Tips:

  • Coordinate: You don’t have to dress everyone in matching holiday sweaters! But choose a theme, or color story, so everyone’s outfits work well together. Solid colors work better than a lot of pattern, layers work better than short sleeves, and a couple cute accessories can really pull things together! Choose one color that everyone pulls into their outfit somewhere – Example: If you chose red, then mom would wear a red top, dad might have a red shirt layered under a sweater, baby could have a red bow in her hair – you get the idea.
  • Shake it up: Don’t take stuffy, boring photos on the family couch. Get outside! Jump in fall leaves, play in the snow, run in the grass. Find an interesting landmark in your city to take photos with. The more unexpected the better!
  • Props: Some fun props can make a world of difference! I love, love, LOVE bringing big wooden letters into photos – have the kids hold letters that spell a word, like JOY or LOVE. Or have each kid hold a sign with a different word – spelling a phrase like Joy to the World. Have everyone wear hats and scarves – or big winter boots in the snow! Eat snowcones, shovel snow, throw the kids in the air, kick a soccer ball – trust me, when you’re having fun, it’ll show in your photos!

Have a Family Photo Day:

Shutterfly wants to help families across the country have an easier time capturing those perfect family moments to share in their Holiday Cards and Photo Books by helping you host Family Photo Days!  What’s a Family Photo Day? Well, it’s a super smart idea, a total Busy Mom Solution – get a bunch of your friends together, set up some fun props to share, brainstorm fun ideas and silly settings, grab your cameras, and prepare to be delighted by some amazing holiday photos!

It’s not about the professional photographer or the dull photo shoot in front of the mantle. It’s something anyone can do. Get together with friends and brainstorm! Think about creative ways to show off your families’ personalities.

Online Tool Kit:

Check out Shutterfly Family Photo Day online for some super cool tools and features:

  • Learn more about Family Photo Day, and watch a really great video that will seriously give you some awesome ideas. So easy, and so fun!
  • Download the digital toolkit for a HUGE list of photo tips – including indoor shots, outdoor ideas, setting and prop ideas, wardrobe tips, and so much more. You’ll feel like a pro in no time!
  • Get FREE Holiday Cards! Enter your favorite family photo – and get 5 totally free cards just for entering! And the winner will get a full YEAR worth of free cards! Awesomesauce, I know.

Secret Trick for Holiday Photos:

If all else fails, and you just cannot get one picture where everyone looks good, use my secret trick – use an easy and free editing program like Picnik.com to crop your photos – take the best parts of a few of your favorites, make sure you’ve got everyone in at least one pic, and put them all together in a fun multiple-photo Christmas Card! No one will ever know that you had to crop out the brother pulling sisters hair. We’ve done this for many of our cards, and they turn out perfect.

More Holiday Fun:

Check out a few of my other Holiday Prep posts too! Learn my super easy peasy secret for amazing Bake Pop desserts, read my Top 10 Tips for Holiday Planning, learn how to get a great 25% off coupon for Melissa & Doug Toys, and get your business ready for the holidays too!

What do you think? 

Did you watch the video? Does it make you more excited for great holiday photo shoots now too? What do you think of the idea to pull your family and friends together for a fun Family Photo Day? Share your thoughts, along with your best holiday photo tips, in the comments!

{Disclaimer: I received a complimentary set of holiday cards for sharing this amazingly cool promotion with you – but I would’ve shared it anyway, because I know you’ll love it. Fun tips and advice, creative inspiration, and free photo cards? That’s what I call super-cool.}

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Posted by on November 7, 2011 Filed Under: Holidays, Busy Mom Solution | No Comments

Busy Mom Solution: Holiday Card Survival Kit – $4.99!!

Get your kit today!

Get a head start on sending out holiday cards this year! Choose from over a thousand super-fun holiday designs and personalize them with your families names and message. Then, make a set of custom return address labels too, to make sending out cards easy peasy! Writing handwritten messages in your cards? {Of course you are!} So you also get a really sweet engraved and customized pen – and you’ll love using these, they write so smooth! They’re totally my favorite pens now. This is a huge savings – a value of around $30 bucks for only $4.99!!! And – if decide to add more cards, or any of the other great holiday items like photo ornaments or calendars, you’ll get FREE shipping over $25 bucks!

This is what you get:

  • 20 Customized Holiday Cards!
  • 140 Personalized Labels – {if you already have address labels, make these to use as gift tags!}
  • And 1 Engraved Pen… Get it ALL for only $4.99!

Visit Vistaprint and get your FREE Holiday Card Survival Kit today!!

When you click the link, you’ll see the selection of card styles at the regular and sale prices – but look for this logo:

Get 20 Holiday Cards, 140 Labels and 1 Engraved Pen for $4.99!
Bonus: New Customers Enjoy FREE Shipping on Orders Over $25!

– at the top – that shows you that you’re not even paying sale prices, you’re getting an AMAZING deal!

Check it out today, and start getting ready for the holidays! – and stay tuned for more great frugal Christmas ideas every day!

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Posted by on November 3, 2011 Filed Under: Busy Mom Solution | No Comments

Busy Mom Solution: Moonpig.com Saves the {Special} Day!

Introducing another great Busy Mom Solution: Moonpig.com!!

This is the problem –

You’re on your way to work, and suddenly remember that this weekend is {insert important person here – grandmas, husbands, best friends, etc} birthday!!! Ohmyheck – when are you going to have time to go pick up a card? Ugh. This happens to me all the time. Plus, I hate making a last-minute dash to a card store and having to rush and pick out some random over-priced card because I’m in too much of a hurry to pick a good one, and the baby is tearing up the tissue paper display while the boys play sword fighting with wrapping paper rolls. Anyone else have this problem??

The solution –

Set up an account at Moonpig.com!! Moonpig lets you choose your favorite cards, personalize them with names, photos, and messages – then mails REAL paper cards directly to the recipient!! How cool is that??

Read More –

I totally recommend signing up for the prepaid plan, which is what I’m doing, since you know I’m all about saving money, right?

Join the Moonpig Prepay Club to save money and make ordering simple. For every $20 you add to your account, we give you $5 free! Just select ‘Prepay’ at checkout and your order is complete.

After you take advantage of this sweet discount, then here’s a great next step – set reminders in your account, to alert you to upcoming holidays, birthdays, graduations, anniversaries – so you never forget an important date again! Then, you can even upload your address book – making it super simple to send multiple cards.

Watch this super fun video to see it all in action –

So cool, right??

I made a few of these cards last night – and am a big fan now! Here are a few things that I totally love:

  • Personalizing with photos is super easy – even when you need to make “faces” – you know, where you cut out the shape of your head to add to a character in a funny pic?? Simple and the results come out great.
  • I love that you can personalize the inside of the card too! You can add messages to both sides of the inner part of the card – with your choice of fonts, colors, and signature. Super fun.
  • There is a HUGE selection! You can find something for every single person – super funny cards, classic designs, really fun stuff for kids, professional cards for work, and some incredibly cool invitations!
  • The price is totally reasonable! Each card will run you about $3 – $4 bucks – which is even cheaper than many of the cards you’ll find at Hallmark or the Grocery store, right? And these are way cooler – since you get to totally personalize them.

What are you waiting for??

Head over to Moonpig.com today, set up an account, upload your address book and calendar – and have one less thing to worry about!!! This is a great option to start setting up all of your holiday cards too – you could make a few personalized cards per day, set dates for them to be sent – and know that this year, all of your cards will get to people in time!

Did I just remind you that the holidays are on the way??

Yep, it’s true – the Christmas season is right around the corner. Here are a few posts to help you get ready – Santa’s Coming! 10 tips to help you prepare for the Holidays, an amazing Christmas Giveaway you can enter, and some great ways to stock up on FREE Christmas gifts – Kids Books, Pluto Ornament and Free Disney Movies, and some Cool Personalized Gifts too! Make it a holly jolly time of year by prepping now, so you can just sit back and relax this December!

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Posted by on October 26, 2011 Filed Under: Holidays, Busy Mom Solution | No Comments

Get one FREE item of Your Choice from Ink Garden!!

Introducing … Ink Garden!

I haven’t gotten a chance to try them out yet, but they have some totally cool designs to choose from! I’m going to be picking out some stuff to order later today – and you should too, before this promotion is over!!

Get ONE FREE ITEM of your choice from Ink Garden!!

Choose your own freebie – 

USE CODE: ForFree which gives you $13 credit which will give you any one of the items free, or 2 items really cheap!!

Choose from 10 Holiday Cards, 1 Notebook, 1 Ceramic Mug, 100 Business or Personal Cards, 1 Mousepad, 1 Placemat, 1 Notepad, 10 Invitations or Announcements and 12 Folded Notecards for free. Customize the color, text and design with photos, clipart, logos and more. Ink Garden is giving you $13 credit to try any of their favorite completely customizable products at no charge!

You only pay shipping!!

Here’s a break down of what shipping will cost on one item – if you decide to order more than just the free gift, you’ll get a better deal on your shipping too…. And heck, $3 bucks for 10 customized photo cards? That’s a heck of a deal!!

  • Notebook: $3.95
  • Mousepad: $5.49
  • 10 Holiday Cards: $3.29
  • 10 Invitations: $3.29
  • Ceramic Mug: $5.49
  • Biz Cards: $3.49
  • Placemat: $3.29
  • Notepad: $3.49
  • Note Cards: $3.29

If you love it, share it!

I’d love to hear from you if you’ve used Ink Garden before – how is the quality? Do you love it? And if you’re as excited as I am about this great freebie, share it to Facebook or Twitter using the easy peasy share buttons! Have a great day!
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Posted by on October 20, 2011 Filed Under: Freebies, Shopping | No Comments

Santas Coming! 10 Tips to Get Ready for the Holidays…

Let me just throw this out here…. I. Love. Christmas. Like, reeeaaallly love Christmas. As soon as Thanksgiving dinner is over, the Christmas Tree goes up. We have a 25 foot wall in the garage, lined with shelves filled floor to ceiling with boxes of Christmas decorations. Yep, we’re that kind of family.

My Favorite Part of My Favorite Movie:

When this movie came out, everyone told me that Buddy the elf must be my twin brother, lol. And it’s true, I’m so much like this. And like Buddy says later – “Santa is coming!! There’s so much to do!!”

Top 10 Holiday Planning Tips:

1. Make lists! Get a notebook, and make a few master lists. Your first is Christmas Cards – make a list of everyone you want to send them to, and start getting addresses. So many of us wait until the last minute, and this becomes a stress-inducing chore instead of a fun way to keep in touch.

2. Now make a Christmas Shopping List too. Write down all of the people you’ll want to buy gifts for – from friends and family, to teachers and coworkers. Do they need holiday cards with their gifts too? Then add ’em to your first list!

3. Take Pictures! Getting professional pictures done is great, but if you can’t afford it – Don’t worry. Trust me, you can still get amazing photos on your own. Check out How to photograph holidays and special occasions and Tips for Capturing Great Family Photos for some great tips and advice on getting great pic’s for this years holiday cards. It’s all about capturing that special moment to share with friends and family!

4. Choose your cards! There are some amazing options for Festive Christmas Cards to be found online – and yes, you can wait until the last minute, and order them with express shipping to get them in time. But you can save a ton by preparing early, and ordering them sooner. Plus, getting them by early November gives you enough time to add a personal message to each one too – which is the best part!

5. Make a Holiday Baking List! There will be TONS of great sales coming up over the next couple of months, and you can match them up with coupons from sites like Coupons.com or RedPlum to save a TON of money. You’ll almost always find coupons for cake mixes, frosting, and cookie mixes. So make a list of everything you’ll need, and start stocking up when your local store has some great deals. Hate clipping coupons? Use my new favorite, SavingsStar, to load digital coupons right onto your store loyalty cards! {Check out my favorite cookie recipe – Peek-a-Boo Cookies!}

6. Start Shopping! Yes – I know it’s not even Halloween yet, lol. But starting early gives you a chance to find the best deals, and get gifts you know they’ll love – instead of overspending at the last minute just to get it finished up! Some tips – Sign up for email updates from sites like Totsy, Zulily or HomeSav to find some totally unique items at HUGE discounts! I watch these all year, and buy great stuff to hide away for birthdays and holidays – you can find kids toys at up to 70-90% off. Wow, right?

7. Yep – another list! List all of the events you want to attend, and set dates for all of your own holiday entertaining and parties. But – make sure not to overextend yourself! Leave some “family” time, at home too, for things like baking cookies and watching movies!

8. Give back to your community. There are so many people in need, and while they of course need your assistance all year long, it takes on extra importance during the holiday season. Imagine being a parent who doesn’t have the resources to get your child a holiday gift, a winter coat, or prepare a Christmas dinner. Heartbreaking. Find out how you can help by visiting sites like Toys for Tots and Coats for Kids. Or check out VolunteerMatch.org to get connected with other local groups who need your help!

9. Another list! Are you a crafty type? If you plan on making gifts for the holidays, you definitely need to get started now – so figure out what you’d like to make, and make a supply list. Make sure to pick up some fun stuff that the kids can make too – they LOVE giving handmade gifts! For some fun ideas check out Handmade Christmas Gifts and 100 Christmas Gifts to Make. And get some great coupons to save at Michaels Crafts.

10. Finally – relax! The holidays are a time for family, celebration, and appreciating what you have. Don’t get too caught up in the frenzy of more, more, more – {unless you’re talking about glitter or tinsel!} – start planning now, use these tips to save bunches of cash, and enjoy the season!

{Disclaimer: I wrote this blog post while participating in the Storkie holiday blogging program. I received compensation for my participation. All opinions are 100% mine.}

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Posted by on October 17, 2011 Filed Under: Holidays, Busy Mom Solution | 4 Comments
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