Month: December 2012

My First Time Sending Christmas Cards

I’m 35 years old and this is the first year that I sent out Christmas cards. I just never thought it was very important. That’s kind of strange since I really enjoy getting them. It all started as I began wondering about all the cards I get, and why people send them even though they’ve never gotten one in return. I get them mostly from friends and relatives that I usually see around Christmas, and so I get to wish them happy holidays in person. But still, they take the time to send me a card as an added little expression of cheer and I suddenly started to feel a little bit guilty.

Actually, the more I thought about it, the more I realized everyone I know sends me a card. Even the company I work for sends cards out to all the employees, and business Christmas cards to all their customers. So I decided I would send out cards that look awesome, don’t cost much, and don’t require too much time on my part. I got a nice customized greeting, signed them and sent them off.

I know I sound like I’m just “keeping up appearances”, and I guess that’s part of it. And maybe I haven’t got quite the right attitude about it yet, but there’s hope. And this will truly be a Happy New Year, because everyone coming to my party tonight got a card from me!

Fond Memories of Personalized Christmas Cards

The holidays are here, and in the blink of an eye they are gone. And what do we have left to remember this special time of year? The toys? The clothes? The leftovers? Or maybe the hours of repacking all the ornaments and knick knacks? No! It’s the beautiful personalized Christmas cards we have received. You know the ones I’m talking about. The one that came from your oldest and dearest friend. Or the one from your favorite Aunt and Uncle who live too far away to visit during the holidays. Or even the one from your neighbor who you don’t really get enough time to sit with. Even my cats get one from my friend’s cat. They really warm the heart. Christmas cards are the best. Some have such beautiful holiday scenes you can almost picture yourself in that setting.

And although everything gets packed away until next season, the custom Christmas cards you received are still on your table. You open them from time to time and begin to drift away thinking about all the fun the holidays are. Family and friends being together, telling old stories and devouring the feast and goodies made from old family recipes. I just love Christmas and all the joy it brings. But my favorite treasures of all are the Christmas cards that I can read over and over again, until the holiday season comes once again.

Having Boxed Christmas Cards on Hand is a Great Solution

If you think you’ve waited too long to order your business Christmas cards, think again! The Gallery Collection offers an assortment box filled with high quality Christmas cards. I purchased a box in addition my annual Christmas cards order. I never seem to order enough cards the first time around, and then I find myself scrambling to get more…I’m sure some of you can relate to this scenario. These boxed Christmas cards came in handy for employees as well as the few late additions to your client list. The quality of the cards is the same as all the other designs, unlike like the usual department store type. I was happy to receive them very quickly; they shipped in less than two business days! Inside the box, there were 35 cards and 38 envelopes, which saved me quite a bit of money!

Having an assortment of business Christmas cards on hand is a great way to be prepared, and you will never have to run out to the store for a card ever again! I know I will gladly pick up the phone and speak to one of The Gallery Collection’s personable customer service reps. And for those of you who prefer online shopping, orders can be placed via the internet as well. It is such a time saver, to say the least!

Creating Personalized Holiday Cards for Christmas

At first, when the idea of creating personalized holiday cards came up, I was somewhat skeptical about wanting to purchase them for a couple reasons. I thought they might be overly expensive and the people that you send them to would not really appreciate the fact that you went out of your way to personalize them. BUT after careful thought I finally just gave in and purchased some so that I can actually see the type of reaction I would get back from those who I sent them to. And to my surprise the reaction was great! I received nothing but all positive feed back; “I love them,” “this is great!” and “this was the best card I have gotten.” So I guess in the end you really will not know your peers responses until you take the risk and see.

Now, when it comes to Season’s Greetings cards, I have always been a little bit more reluctant to purchase these as appose to other greeting cards during this time of year. The reason for this is due to the fact that there are people from all walks of life, all nationalities and religions. Therefore to buy a mass quantity of cards for your friends and family, your best bet would be to buy holiday cards that are just merely season’s greetings cards. Some people do not celebrate Christmas but may celebrate Hanukah, or there might be some people that may not celebrate Hanukah but may celebrate Christmas, or there even might be some people who you talk to that do not celebrate either and may just look forward to the New Year, you never know. So personalizing season’s greetings cards would be the best bet to satisfy everyone. Keeping the card general shows you are sensitive to their religion or creed but that you still care. You cannot go wrong.

The Three Little Elves That Loved Personalized Holiday Cards!

Every year I usually just stress myself out with trying to get all three of my children to sit for the perfect holiday card to send to friends and family. This year I decided that they are all at an age were they can sign their own names and make it more personal. I wanted personalized holiday cards without the stress of getting the perfect portrait. So I searched the web looking for the “perfect card.” I came across The Gallery Collection late one night since that is the only time I get access to the laptop. The next day I called and had them send me a few samples. I wasn’t expecting much, because it’s only a greeting card, right? Boy was I wrong! One of the samples that I received was of Design 077CX – Cheerful Greetings Card. The excitement I felt of seeing the three elves on the card reminded me of my children. I knew instantly that was our card this season. The next day, I instantly called and placed my order for our cards. The woman I spoke to was so patient and helpful. When we got to the personalization she asked what I wanted. I explained that I was planning on having the whole family sign the cards. She pointed out something I did not even think of – children usually do not want to sit and sign all of those cards. So she told me that they can put all of our signatures on the cards for us. A couple of weeks later my cards arrived and they were breathtaking.

In my excitement to order my holiday cards, I happened to make my order a few short of my Christmas card list. Since I was so pleased with my first choice, I decided to mix it up and order a different design. I went back to the website to browse some more, and I have to say I’ve become quite addicted to this site! I soon found another card, Design 727CW – Purrfect Packages Christmas Card and called again and placed a second order. When my second order arrived I was just as amazed as I was with the first initial order. They were even able to reuse our signatures! The whole family fell in love with our Christmas cards. They even helped stash them in the envelopes and place the stamps on. Sending our cards was stress free this year and I owe it all to The Gallery Collection.

Company Christmas Cards Are Easy To Order Online

I’ve always been very skeptical when ordering company Christmas cards over the internet.  I worry about – does it look as good in person, what if the boss doesn’t like them, etc.  Well, I went for it and ordered our cards from the internet.  I was very surprised when I opened up the package and discovered that the cards that I had ordered were beautiful!  The cards were shiny and had a 3D effect.  It came with white envelopes lined with gold foil inside.  Was I impressed!

I decided to have the cards imprinted with the names of the executive team, but was very skeptical about how it would look.  I chose gold foil imprinting since I thought it would look nice with the shiny gold greeting on the front of the card.

I needn’t have worried, because everyone from the office was just thrilled when they saw our Christmas cards, and they couldn’t wait to send them to all our clients. They were also quite pleased to discover how easy ordering our cards online from The Gallery Collection turned out to be!

Creative Crafts with Business Christmas Cards

I hate to throw away all the beautiful personal and business Christmas cards I’ve received through the years. Yes, I keep all the cards I receive, and all the Christmas cards my family receives too! They are too pretty to throw away and they mark the years as my children are growing up. However, since I have so many of them, sometimes I like to get crafty with all the great cards and designs.

One of the great things you can do with your old personalized Christmas cards is to make garlands that you can hang all around the house and outside (in warm climates) as well when you decorate for the holidays. Begin with using as many horizontal cards as you have. You can use a simple ribbon about 6 to 8 feet long. If you need a longer size, make sure your ribbon is a big spool. You can also use a thin clothesline, string, or wire. Measure the size you need and cut it to size. Start overlapping the horizontal cards over the ribbon and staple them around the ribbon making a thin pocket for the ribbon or string to be enclosed in. To keep the cards in place at about 5 or six inches from each other, staple the card to the string or ribbon in the center top of the card. To make them even prettier, use a pair of pinking shears or craft scissors that are available with the crazy cuts on them to put a beautiful edge on the cards.

You can also glue some glitter onto the card in the art or on the edge of the card, or attach some little rhinestones or colorful buttons or small shiny items on the card to give it some sparkle. You will be surprised at what a difference that makes. If you have vertical Christmas cards to be used you can use a small hole punch to make a hole on the top of the card and run a ribbon or string through it and then hang the card with tying a bow on the banner ribbon or string.

You can also use Christmas cards to create cupcake toppers or decorations. Use any and all of your cards and cut around the art on the front of the cards. You will have to make the art somewhat small to fit nicely on the top of a cupcake. Once that is done, get some little sticks that they sell in the baking aisle of your craft store or food store and glue the art from your cards to the stick.  Once dry, you can stick the decoration right on the top of the cupcake and line them up on a platter and you have beautiful, colorful cupcakes perfect for holiday get-togethers.

Now you have two new ideas for you to try when you have all those beautiful cards that you do not want to throw away!

Christmas Cards Time or Mayan Calendar End of the World!

Fourteen days. That’s it. According to a countless number of people and their interpretation of a 5,000 plus year old calendar, the end of the world is coming in fourteen short days on December 21st, 2012. The date 12/21/12 has been floated in front of us for what seems to be years now. Over the past decade, the Earth has survived many other “End of the World” dates but this time it’s for real, right? The Mayans predicted this many millennia ago through their Mayan Calendar so it has to be true, right? Wrong. We will all wake up on December 22nd, laugh off another failed End of Days prediction, and continue the excitement of the holiday season.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways that the world is going to end on the 21st. A popular notion is that planet Nibiru is going to collide with Earth. This was first predicted to happen in May of 2003 but when (surprise, surprise) it didn’t, the date was moved to 12/21/12 to coincide with the end of the Mayan Calendar. Lucky for us, NASA itself has confirmed that we are in no danger of being as much as scratched by any rogue planets.

What else is out there that is going to destroy our world? The planets are going to align and supposedly create some sort of devastation but that means very little. This has happened multiple times in the past few decades and we are still here. Maybe the sun is going to put out a powerful solar storm which will destroy Earth. Sure, it is true that the sun is entering the peak of its solar cycle (which happens once every 11 years or so). This isn’t a threat to Earth as a whole, however. The only things that need to be afraid are some satellites floating far above Earth.

Is speculating about the end of the Earth an interesting conversation topic? Sure it is. It gives everyone something to talk about at their holiday parties over the next few weeks. Who doesn’t enjoy taking about some cataclysmic event? Is the end of the world something to be legitimately nervous about? Absolutely not. Spend your time enjoying the season and not worrying about the silly speculation. You will be happy you did when you wake up on December 22nd and realize you still have to send out all your Christmas cards!

Personalized Christmas Cards and December Madness

The time between the end of the football season, at the beginning of February, and April, when baseball returns, is like a no-man’s land for me. I don’t follow hockey or basketball, don’t listen to sports talk radio, hardly watch the sports on the 11 o’clock news, and I skim through my local paper’s sport page in all of three minutes. For others who are into basketball, especially the college variety, there is something exciting called “March Madness”, which is a tournament where I think something like 300 or more teams play each other until there is a winner. For me, there is only “December Madness”, which is when I have to sit my butt down and figure out how many personalized Christmas cards to send out and to whom.

The sending of Christmas cards should be a joyous task because it’s “that time of year,” yada, yada, yada. But I find it to be a bit on the stressful side because I don’t want to make a mistake by forgetting someone who expects a Christmas card from me, you know what I mean? However, I usually am praised for my personalized Christmas cards selection, as I always buy my cards from The Gallery Collection. My clients want to know from which company I buy my cards and I always tell them to flip over the card for. The Gallery Collection’s Christmas cards selection, which includes designs featuring gift boxes, Christmas trees, wreaths, holiday winter scenes, as well as religious cards – contain beautiful colors, shimmering foils, and sculpted embossing. No one can beat their astounding selection.

As for “March Madness”, I think I’ll pay a few bucks to be part of my office’s contest where one can pick a team to win the whole thing and then you win a big bundle of money. Hey, maybe I’ll get lucky and win enough to pay for my Christmas cards!

Religious Christmas Cards and Helping Others

Every year as I prepare my religious Christmas cards and get ready to send them off I think about my church and all the people who most of my cards will be going to. I think about the people in need and I’m glad through my church there are so many opportunities to give. We have a ministry that is called Urban Feet. We go into heavily urban areas and give out coats, socks, shoes, scarves and many other types of clothing. We also are part of the Angel Tree ministry, where the children of an incarcerated parent or parents will receive gifts in their parents name from those who give gifts to the ministry. I also like to include Christmas cards with my gifts.

Each Christmas after sending out my cards I receive tons of praise on the quality. People would say “These are the best Christmas cards I ever received.” That brings joy to my heart, knowing I picked the right cards to send to family and friends. Being able to share the holiday spirit with those in need, as well as all the wonderful people who I am lucky enough to have in my life, make sending cards a truly important part of the season.