Snail-Mail Christmas Cards

I love the tradition of getting Christmas cards mailed to your home every year!  Yeah, people don't use snail-mail as often anymore with the existence of e-cards and evites.  Yet, for the holidays, the tradition still seems to be strong.  Sites like Shutterfly, Minted, Snapfish, Cardstore, Pear Tree, Paper Culture, Tiny Prints, and Pixingo help keep the spirit of receiving cute physical cards alive.

  



[PS- Holiday Discounts I found in my Real Simple magazine: 25% off paperculture.com/holiday, 10% off minted.com/realsimple, 15% off pear tree promo code: REAL]

  

Here is our 2011 Frets family card:

[designed through shutterfly]

inside:

back:

We all dressed in purple with either our K-State or TCU gear on!  We've become a split family, but at least it's all the same color scheme! We've been giving my mom a hard time since she spelled Kyle's dog's name wrong [it's 'Khloe'] and they had already been ordered!

Here are some of my favorites from that photo-shoot:

And some of the outtakes!!!

mom & I get carried away when we have pom-poms!

When it comes to the question of what to do with all of your saved cards that year... [especially the christmas letters everyone sends] we've been a little stumped.  My mom could never bring herself to throwing them away so we've accumulated boxes of them labeled by the year in our storage room.  

A friend suggested putting them in a photo album where you can arrange them how you like.  This is what I've done for the past two years, but it bothered me that you could only view one side of the cards without getting them out, since some open or are front/back.

Her family card was the first one we received this year!...I love the colors!

Earlier this year I saw another friend's way of keeping them organized that I felt was perfect for us!  I thought this idea was so cute for people to look through past years, and is especially interactive for kids!

 [I know it's only 2007-2009 shown, those are the first I got to...a little overwhelming when my mom has 2010 all the way back to the early 1990's! But imagine how cute that will be when there is a whole long row of them hanging on stocking hooks from their lower level mantel!]

TO CREATE:

FIRST: I single-hole-punched the top-left corners of all our cards, letters, and photos

 

I wanted to keep it more compact, so I folded the larger letters into these gift sacks from Target I found in the dollar section [or you could use cute little envelopes] and hole-punched the corner

 

SECOND: I strung them all through these large paper clips I bought from Target [they come in a pack of 5] or you could use the thick metal rings that clip together, or ribbon

[making sure to string our family card from that year on top for easily comparing our ever-changing hairstyles and embarrassing phases!]

THIRD: I wrote the year with silver sharpie on some fun scrapbook paper glued on cardstock [so it's a little thicker] with stickers and strung it on the top for a cute label

FOURTH: find a cute place to hang them or table to display them on for years of fun reminiscing!

Let me know if you have any cute ideas or things you do with your cards!