Every year we seem to get fewer and fewer Christmas
cards - actual Christmas cards, that is. With an increasing focus on climate
change and the environment, it just doesn’t seem right any more to be sending
out dozens and dozens of cards - not to mention the cost of the stamps.
That’s not to say I am against the idea of sending
cards at all, for one thing I love to make greetings cards so of course I like
to send them! But with a very active toddler I hardly have any time any more
and the idea of sitting down to write a pile of Christmas cards seemed a bit
overwhelming.
Instead, I sent cards to family and a few others but for the most part, decided to send
e-cards this year. I’ve used Paperless Post before so went straight back there
this time to make our Christmas card.
We had a Christmas themed photo shoot for my daughter in
November - we’d done the same the year before when I was on maternity leave via
a ‘bumps and babies’ group and as it was really good value, we did the same
again this year.
The photos aren’t particularly Christmassy - my daughter is wearing a pretty red velvet dress but there were no props or Christmas images in the photo. Even so, I thought it would be nice for a Christmas card.
Paperless Post has sections for all sorts of greeting
cards ranging from birthday cards to event invitations and also business
flyers. I went to the Christmas section and looked at cards where you could add
your own photos - there were well over 200 designs.
I chose one that I liked and uploaded the photo just by a
couple of clicks, then added wording, selected whether I wanted a coloured
background and the envelope. It’s really easy to add multiple recipients’ email
addresses, and if you have used Paperless Post before, it remembers addresses,
so you just have to start typing in the person’s name. That made it so quick to
set up a list and to send the card out.
As I ended up doing it quite late at night - as is often
the case when you have a toddler - I was also able to schedule the card to be
sent at a suitable time, which was a function I liked.
The site uses ‘coins’ to pay for the cards, which you buy
in blocks, with the price per unit decreasing the more coins you buy at once.
You can get a card for just a couple of coins which as far as I can tell works
out at less than sending a card in the post given the price of stamps these
days.
My family and friends seemed to like receiving a
personalised card and I think the pictures of my daughter were particularly
appreciated by family even though I was giving people a print out of some of
the photos anyway - and using Paperless Post made doing my Christmas cards a
lot easier this year!
Thanks to Paperless Post who gave me coins to use on
their site in return for this post. All opinions are my own.