How To Choose Designer Holiday Cards From Minted

November 27, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Shine Bright this Holiday Season with Unique and Indie Designed Minted Holiday Cards

minted sample

I’m pleased to be working with Minted for another holiday season. As my Christmas card list shrinks because so many people have switched to e-cards (so I send them e-cards in return) I still love the process of selecting a design and tweaking it to create a combo of images of my family and a message that communicates our holiday greetings with our unique personality.

The only problem is that there are so many designs to choose from! As my friend texted me, “I’ve fallen down the Minted rabbit hole.”

Indeed. When I first started poking around in this season’s designs, I was just going to take a cursory look, but a half hour later I was still browsing through, imagining my own family’s photo in one of the designs. You can skip that part and just upload your photo right away, then load it into each design you like to preview how it will look. Minted works with indie designers to present a variety of different looks. If you like one design, you can look at others by the same artist.

But if you’re like me and you fall down the rabbit hole, you might get stuck on a design that strikes your fancy. I loved the idea of a “year in review,” and so then I fell down another hole, which is all the photos I’ve loaded onto my computer since January 2015. I wound up picking 70 favorites. That’s too many. So I loaded about 20 into Minted’s photo library, and played around with them, and came up with this goofy combo:card frontThen, because I couldn’t resist, I chose to add one large photo to the back of the card with a holiday message. (This adds $23.95 to the price, but don’t you think it’s worth it?)

card back

And since this option is free, I loaded in my address book for all the people I am sending cards to. Minted prints their addresses on the envelopes so they look classy, and it saves my hand from cramping! All I have to do is stuff envelopes and stamp them. For an additional fee you can even have your return address printed on the envelope.

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I really love the quality of Minted’s cards for the holidays. There are many beautiful design options, thick and luxurious paper, classy printed envelopes, and the prices are reasonable for the quality you get. I ordered them on Monday and received them on Friday! They look and feel great. Done and done!

I received complimentary cards from Minted as part of my work with Savvy Sassy Scouts program.

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Christmas in February – our minted Christmas card, revealed

February 17, 2015 by 1 Comment

Back in December I posted some of the shots from our Christmas card photo shoot and I realized I never posted the final version. Here is what we sent out:

xmas card 2014 front xmas card 2014 backThanks to minted for the complimentary batch of cards this year. Last year. Whichever you want to count.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

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The Outtakes Are Better Than the Final Shot: Humorous Christmas Card From Minted

December 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment

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I love Christmas cards so much. I save the ones I receive and bundle them up with a ribbon when I pack up all of our Christmas decorations. At the beginning of December, when it’s time to decorate for the holidays again, I pull them out and leaf through them. Sometimes I go back several years to when everyone’s kids were babies, comparing their little faces to what they look like now.

I love the gesture, the idea that someone was thinking about our family when they address the envelope to us. I hope they feel the love when they receive a card from us. And I hope it makes them smile.

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I quite enjoy going through the photos we take in preparation for our Christmas card. This year the experience was a little bit less hectic because my family knows the drill. As soon as the kids see me setting up the tripod and pulling out different shirts for them to wear, they’re on to me.

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Since the photos we don’t use are often more entertaining than the final one we pick, I decided to go with an outtakes theme. I didn’t force it – I set up the shot, gathered my kids and husband, and let my mom and dad stand behind the camera to press the button. Since I’ve been fussing with camera settings, of course I left it all on the completely wrong settings for the kind of light that was hitting us at Leo Carillo that day, so even after it seemed like we got a nice shot, I made everybody do it all over again.

Then I got all fancy and took more shots of the kids as the sun sank lower in the sky and the light became more golden. And then I got artsy. Well, as artsy as I can get. I’m not very artsy. I’m not even a good photographer. But I always like the photos we get during these shoots. They’re real, and they capture a moment in time, the best way you can pretend to freeze your family in this happy moment.

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Once we get home and I look through the shots, then it’s time to pick a card layout. With so many choices on minted, this year I wanted to use a design with a lot of photos on the front, and one on the back. These are the ones I played around with (also with the help of my friend Desiree who has an eye for this sort of thing): holiday collage our favorite moment

I especially love minted’s option for different backs of cards. The full card printed background is classy, but then you can add a photo and even text. This was one of my favorites:

Front

multi merryxmas

 

Back

multi merryxmas back

 

I don’t like to share photos of our Christmas card until after they have been mailed out, so stay tuned for a later post when I add all the photos and a shot of the final card.

Minted is running a special right now – they will address your envelopes for FREE. You just have to upload your address book and make sure all the addresses are correct, and you can pick artsy fonts and logos and such for the front. Also today they have a deal – 15% off and free shipping on all holiday cards!

I received credit at minted to facilitate this 2-part series of posts.

 

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