Christmas cards exchange has got to be one of my favorite American Traditions. I love it!
I've been designing the family's cards for the last five years. I love doing this every year. It started when I did a photo collage of every season for the family when we celebrated my first year here and they asked me if I wanted to turn that into their Christmas card! We thought it would be a great idea to add the highlights of every year by using some of the best pictures we had from every season. This is a great way to show more than just the ''picture perfect'' family pictures.
Since I designed a specific layout, we couldn't find any holiday card website that allowed us to print our cards without a predesigned templet. We searched to see if there was some company out there that would allow us to print our designs the way we wanted and we found Photo Evo. This is a website that photographers use to print their own layouts and designs. It is a bit complicated at first, because you have to download their own software to be able to order the prints, but it has worked great for us every year and they turn out amazing. Their quality is top knotch and they have different available finishes to choose from, as well as different formats. We usually choose the 4 side accordion one to fit our four seasons. You can see the result of each year below.
We love going back to each year's cards seeing how the boys have grown over the years and all the wonderful adventures they've been a part of. This is not just another card, is one of those cards that can be saved year after year like a photo album. We also write a few memories of each season like 38 days of skiing, ice skating or Maui with friends for Easter.
For the Cover we use a winter-y image from that year that we like and this year I decided to illustrate a "Brain Map" of the boys with things they like for the Card cover (see Fifth Year).
