Friday, November 26, 2010

Does Your Camera Shutter Fly?

I take a lot of pictures (understatement of the year). And the massive quantity increases ten-fold over the holidays when we're blessed to be surrounded by our extended family.

Most of the time, these pictures are solely displayed on this blog. But, for those special occasions that warrant something a little extra, I've found the perfect solutions. My home for these projects? Shutterfly.

Did you photograph a birthday party? Was your daughter a flower girl for the first time? Or maybe you want to document a specific holiday? Turn the photos into a book! Do a simple, and inexpensive, 5x7 soft cover photo book! Here are some examples of ones I've done recently:

My niece Olivia's 5th Birthday Party in Missouri (I'll bring the printed version home to you for Christmas, Sarah!)
Ivie's flower girl debut in Matt and Carla's wedding
Halloween, 2010

For several years now, I've also turned our favorite pictures during the year into a calendar. This year, I'm doing five of them! One each for Nina and Papa (my parents), Grandma (Dale's mom), Great-Granny and Great-Papa (my grandparents), Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Doug (Dale's brother), and, of course, myself!

Since the calendars are Christmas gifts and, therefore, SURPRISES, I can't show you this year's versions (though I will say that I'm extremely excited about one of the new features available!). And, since Shutterfly is constantly coming up with new styles, the ones from last year are discontinued. So I can't show those, either. Oh, well. Suffice it to say that they turn out great, and they're wonderful gifts for grandparents (and great-grandparents!). Especially if you can get your siblings and cousins to help you by uploading pictures of their kids for you to use!

Anyway, over the years, many a gift has been found at Shutterfly! I've gotten coffee mugs (which also make great pen/pencil holders at the office!), mouse pads, and luggage tags.

Last year, we even used Shutterfly for our Christmas cards! We had two versions that served different purposes:

Friends and Family
Dale's Work Version

So we'll be "back in" again this year! The hardest part is figuring out which card is my favorite!

I'm a huge fan of brown, so it will be hard to pass up this one, this one, this one, or this one. (Apparently the Shutterfly folks like brown, too!)

And ORANGE! You don't see many holiday cards in orange, do you? So, as a shout-out to my fellow Dutchmen, check out this one!

And, goodness, I'm not even finished. Just flipped over to the "flat stationery card" section and saw this one. Is there a more perfect card for an adorable close-up black and white photo?!? Well, maybe this one, actually!

And since this one fits our color scheme for our yearly Christmas card photos, it's got to be on my "short list". Along with this one with the funky pattern!

Okay. Writing this post has gotten me excited about this sometimes-stressful process. Now I just have to find shirts for the girls to wear for the photo! Black Friday shopping, maybe?


With this post, I am participating in a Shutterfly promotion in which I could receive 50 free holiday cards. Sound cool? You can join in the fun here!

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