This giveaway is big. I love it so much, I want to win it myself.
First, the background. Holiday cards are a huge deal to me. Kevin mocks me about it, but I see the card we send as an extension of us. I want it to be nice and polished, from the paper quality to the picture, and after a bad experience last year, I realized despite my frugal nature, it was worth paying more to get a better product. For many of the people on our card list, the card is the only thing they see of us each year. I know my older or distant relatives love to see a good picture of the kids and like me, most people display the cards they receive throughout the holiday season. Our pediatrician's office fills the waiting room walls with holiday cards and as we always end up there during the cold months, I love looking around at all the cards and the different families. I've had friends not on our card list comment on our card or photo because they saw it while in the waiting room. It's a lot like advertising, in a way.
Our traditional card photo is taken at the Christmas tree farm on Thanksgiving weekend, but I think it is time to phase it out. Partially because another related tradition involves me blowing my top while trying to get two kids to stay still and not mess with each other long enough for my camera to focus and get the shot. That's a tradition we can do without. The other reason to drop it is because it rushes the entire process. It was early December last year when I finally had the picture ready to go, but by that time, all of the early bird discounts were long gone. I found a pretty good deal for a Martha Stewart-line card at a big photo company, and despite my hesitations about the quality, I went for it. After a major hassle on the shipping (despite the print shop being across the bay and almost visible from my house), the cards arrived and they sucked. The paper quality was fine - not great, but okay - but the photo printing was awful. Despite sending the company crisp, clean photos, they came back slightly fuzzy. The biggest problem was that it was too late to order cards elsewhere for delivery prior to Christmas. I was embarrassed, but I sent the cards out anyway.
This year another company gave me a gift certificate that would have covered my Christmas cards, but not only was I concerned about quality, I had trouble navigating their website. At this point, Tiny Prints stepped in to save the day.
Tiny Prints is the best. Their website is easy to use and the costs are
clear, but the best part is that the finished product is gorgeous. The
hard part is picking a card because they have so many great styles from which to
choose. When I went to their site recently, the front
featured the cutest Thanksgiving dinner invitation. We aren't hosting
Thanksgiving, nor does my family send out invitations for that day, but
the Tiny Prints invite made me want to host the feast, merely so I
could send out that invitation. (I came to my senses when I remembered
that showing up to my mom's house with the kids and a side dish was
much easier than putting on the whole show.)
Finally, the good part: Tiny Prints is allowing me to give away an entire holiday card package, including matching postage! That's 50 cards, 72 address labels and 60 stamps with the matching card design. Seriously.
Here's where you work for it: to enter, go to Tiny Prints and find the card with "slushy to chic" in the description. Once you find it, click on "ask a friend," make up a fun and creative greeting and share it with me (tipclo@gmail.com). Also click, "save in favorites" and follow the directions to save it to an account. Finally (the last step!), leave a comment here with that same greeting and you will be officially entered! The winner will be the person who followed the directions correctly and had what I determined to be the best greeting. (I've got an odd sense of humor, but I also want something festive I could "borrow" for my cards as well, so the door is wide open.) The contest ends Friday, Nov. 7.
The rules, via the good people at Tiny Prints: you can enter this contest as many times as you'd like, as long as you haven't won a Tiny Prints contest in the last 90 days. If you've won something from them recently, come on, don't be greedy! As I say to my kids, "give someone else a chance!" If you win and decided you need more than 50 cards, you have to pay for the additional cards yourself. Tiny Prints may use the entries for promotional use. And finally, this is open to contestants worldwide.
Woo hoo! Go get 'em and good luck!
