Martha emailed in the following tip:
The trend now days is to send out birthday invitations and Christmas cards with pictures on them. However, these trendy types of cards can get really expensive.
To save money making these cards I downloaded a free program, Picasa, on my computer. With this program I can create a collage of pictures any way I want to place them, add text in any font or size I’d like, and add any colors I want for background, lettering, and much more.
The pictures can be filed into different folders and then can be edited. You to fix red eye, change photos to black and white, sepia toned and other editing options are also available.
Best of all, the collage you create can be sized to 4×6, 5×7, 8×10 (or other sizes) so that you can send them to where you want to have them printed (as a picture), and only pay for the price of printing one picture! So, instead of paying a company to create a more expensive invitation or Christmas card for you, you can create it the way you want it, pair it with a photo deal (think Walgreens free photo deals) and get your cards really inexpensively — or even free!
-submitted by Martha who blogs at Take Ten Again
I splurge on two things-a photobook of our year and Christmas cards. One way I cash in is my disney rewards. I don’t buy the movies, but I have friends who do but don’t use the codes. Also I use any codes from companies and am willing to get my cards from multiple sources. I spend a bit money on these two items, but these are two things that I like to splurge on during the year and skimp in other areas.
In order to save on sending our Christmas cards, I like to use Vistaprint, choose post cards, upload a personal picture and then write a message on the back. That way, I get to send out a card with a picture, get a (short) message included (on the back) AND I save on postage since it’s post card rate and not regular mail. I also did this for our baby announcements when our daughter was born.
When baby #2 was born I had a ton of Pampers points built up, not just from diapers from #1 but from the freebies they occasionally post. I was so glad I had not wasted my points on toys and what not, because I traded them all for Shutterfly codes and got a ton of super nice announcements for practically nothing.
The idea is definitely a good one. We used free photo coupons to have photos from our wedding printed so we could send them out with our thank you cards. And we would totally do this with Christmas cards, though sometimes having to pay a bit more to get something nice looking is worth it.
I’ve done this for thank you notes as well & my kids’ valentines for school this year. Definitely check out sales/coupons etc that are out there for Christmas cards though. Especially if you can be ready to order early. Last year I got 150 cards from cardstore.com for less than 45 dollars. I uploaded my addresses and the envelopes came addressed with a return address AND a stamp. That’s less than the postage alone would have been!!!
I create my own Christmas cards, birthday invitations, and baby announcements because I love Tiny Prints designs but my budget does not like their price. My biggest saver has been to print at Sam’s or Costco. You can often get 5×7 for $0.25 and I have been able to talk Sam’s into giving me the envelopes free at Christmas time.
I regularly do this, for everything from Christmas cards to birthday party invitations. I use Snapfish, which has regular penny-prints sales (the code CELEBRATE300 will get you 1-cent 4×6 prints until midnight tonight). And at the most, their 4×6 prints are under 10 cents apiece even at regular price. Then I buy envelopes that perfectly fit 4×6 photos (in plain white at Staples or in colors online).
Signing up for deal e-mails from Snapfish, Shutterfly, etc. is a good idea because they all have great sales and coupons. They also often have 3-for-1 photo book deals.
I did this for my daughter’s birthday invites! It worked great! To dress them up a bit I bought some cardstock to glue it on. I got the photos for free with a Target deal and the cardstock half price at Hobby Lobby. Made her invites about $1.50 for 50 of them, and I still had cardstock left over for other things.
I also blog more regularly at this site: http://www.taketenagain.blogspot.com
Great info! I just posted some more details about doing this for your blog an facebook timeline. Excellent tips here- thanks!
http://gabrielsgoodtidings.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-to-make-cover-photo-for-facebook.html?m=1
You know, there are always codes floating around for Shutterfly, Snapfish, Artscow, etc. for free or extremely cheap cards. If you spend a few minutes googling it, you can always come up with some sort of deal, and if you get on the mailing lists they often mail you out coupon codes. Monday, I got a code from Artscow for $10 off a $10 purchase, which is enough to pay for a photobook and part of the shipping.
Doing it yourself is great, too, but don’t discount the discounts!
You can write on/address the back of the photo like a post card and then you only need a postcard stamp.
We did this last year for my daughter’s birthday invites. They got a little banged up in the process, but it worked! If I chose this method again I’d probably use really thick cardstock glued to the back for stability.
I just have to say, this is absolutely brilliant! I’ve always wanted to do photo cards, but have never been careful enough to budget them in, and never can afford to! Now I can! Thank you so much! This is why I love Money Saving Mom….these tips are so practical and can help in every area of life! And almost every tip is easy and doable! What a creative idea!
My friend Suzy taught me this tip. Now I use it all the time and try to help others learn to do it too!
http://www.taketenagain.blogspot.com
Last year at my son’s birthday party we took a group picture of all of his friends in the bounce house we rented. Instead of buying thank you cards to send to the guests I printed out the group photo, jazzed it up by cutting the edges with craft scissors and wrote a thank you note on the back. The parents and kids loved having a picture from the party and it was super cheap for me to do. I printed mine at home using photo paper and ink I got a great deal on but it would be just as frugal to get them printed at a drugstore or online with a deal.
This is a great idea! I had originally ruled out Christmas cards for 2012, but I may have to rethink that!
Shutterfly sends me free codes for their great-quality cards on a regular basis, so many that I don’t use them all because I have enough stockpiled already!
Thank you SO much for this amazing tip!! I had no idea this option was out there. This will be a money saver for me!