Day Two

Today's post comes to you courtesy of cardstore.com, home of beautiful, customizable holiday cards and photo cards. Cardstore.com is offering a little something for everyone: 20 percent off your first purchase when you use the code CSHOLIDAY20 by December 31, 2010! AND we also have one $25 giveaway to cardstore.com for one random commenter on today's post. (Comments close Monday, December 13, at 9:00 a.m. MST.)

I used this service to create my holiday cards this year, and I opted for the 7 x 5 double-sided postcard option. I love how it turned out!

CLICK IMAGES FOR LARGER VIEWS

Since 2006, we Lucases have been sending this exact sort of family update (a photo plus a written update that includes one tiny fact per month, see them here) to our friends and family. But in the past, we've custom designed the cards as either the 5 x 7 or 4 x 6 photo size and just ordered a bunch of standard prints from a photo developer. The process takes quite a bit of time. (I select photos, write the update, and start a very novice Photoshop design. Then my graphic-artist husband steps in and polishes the design, since my skills are minimal.) And it's been dificult to find envelopes to fit a 4 x 6 print adequately. Then, there's the whole laborious address labelling process.

This year, I completed the entire card myself using the gorgeous templates on cardstore.com. There are regular holiday cards available on the site, but I loved the postcard option that's customizable on both sides and even allows you to add photos to the back side! (And it's eco friendly as it saves on paper, compared to the folded-card style, and envelopes too.) Once I selected a design template I liked, I uploaded my photos in seconds, after converting two of my color photos to sepia tone so there wouldn't be such a jumble of competing colors on the card. (Note: My favorite trick for sepia photos can be found in Special Effects for Digital Photos by Renee Pearson, just $5.99.)

Here's an honest review of my experience.

What I Liked

• The options for card designs are versatile, modern, and gorgeous.
• You can easily browse by holiday (Christmas, Hannukah, New Year's), style (modern, traditional, whimsical, vintage) or number of photos you want to include.
• There are even pink holiday cards for breast cancer (40 percent of sales go to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation), a cool option if breast cancer hits close to home for your family, as it does for mine.
• The photo uploader tool was simple to use, and once my photos were uploaded, I could (and did!) try them out in multiple different designs.
• You can easily save a design and come back to it later.
• There's a nice variety of font choices for your text.
• There are volume pricing breaks if you purchase 10, 25, 50, or 100 cards featuring the same design. (With the 20 percent coupon code, my cards were $.87 each.)
• You can opt to have your cards mailed directly from cardstore.com to your individual recipients. Or you can have the stack mailed to you for you to hand address and stamp.

What I Didn't Like

• The text entry field was fairly small, and I couldn't zoom in on it, so it was hard to tell if my text had any typos. (However, the next step allows you to preview and zoom in on your final cards, and if you notice mistakes, you can go back and fix them and then preview again.)
• While it is possible to convert a photo to black-and-white or sepia right in the program, the sepia conversion looked wonky and I didn't trust it. So I converted my photos myself and reuploaded them.
• After you finish a card and click into the addressing feature, it appeared as though I had to enter all of my recipients' addresses by hand. I could see no easy or obvious links to uploading an address book, although the function does exist. Just click here. (A huge time saver.)
   

So, leave a comment on this post about anything related to holiday cards for your chance to win! Don't worry, if you haven't already sent your holiday cards, there's still time, especially if you choose the option to mail directly from cardstore.com to your recipients. If you have already mailed your cards, use your 20 percent discount to send a handful of personalized holiday thank you cards or fabulously festive New Year's cards instead.

Enjoy!

p.s. Oh, and I just barely noticed the customizable photo gift tags. Adorable! I just might be trying those next year.

**UPDATE**
Today's winner is commenter #22, jenevang. Congratulations!