Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Works for Me Wednesday #1--go digital!



Welcome, "Works for Me Wednesday" participants!!

I love doing new blog carnivals! This one originated at the "Rocks In My Dryer" blog. Read all about the guidelines

HERE

Here's my first installment. It's related to saving time and $$$...Christmas...simplifying...keeping in touch...AND going GREEN!

DIGITAL CHRISTMAS CARDS.

Here's the deal. The end product is a lot like the photo greeting cards available at Walgreens or Costco, where you upload a picture and they print out a set of cards for you.

Like these:









EXCEPT:

1. You're paying a real person for their unique design. On Etsy, they're typically stay-at-home moms with a background in design. How nice to support them this holiday season instead of the "big box retailers!" Plus, yours won't look like every other card you get in the mail!

2. They are usually customizable, so you can change the text, colors and format depending on your photo, and even add more pictures!

3. They are digital, so you get a .jpeg file that you upload to your favorite photo printing site and only pay for the cost of printing a picture (4 x 6 or 5 x 7), plus the cost of an envelope. CHEAP!

4. AND, you can also E-MAIL your .jpeg file to your mailing list to SAVE on printing and postage!!

I'm sending about 80% of mine through e-mail and only sending hard copies to immediate family and people I know don't check their e-mail. Then I'm paying less than 15 cents per card plus the envelope. So affordable! And, hey, people who get the e-mail can always save the picture and upload it to their favorite printing site and pay for the picture themselves! :)

Saves on time, money and paper!! Woo-hoo!!

This is the lady I used and once I bought the design I liked and e-mailed her the pictures, we had the finalized version (after two tweaks) within about ten hours total. She's awesome!! She moved things around and added pictures until it was perfect!

Lil' Bean Sprout

Etsy.com has several choices--just search "digital holiday cards."

Visit the WFMW homepage to read all the entries.

Rocks In My Dryer

2 comments:

Krissy said...

Very nice! I like that idea, and those cards are beautiful. I'll be looking into that fo' sho! lol :D

Micah and Katie said...

I did the same thing for Christmas this year with a friend of mine who has some nice designs on her computer. The envelops I bought at the dollar store and decorated them with some Christmas stamps.