Shutterfly GIVEAWAY! (Ends 10/29)

It's that time of year again!!  Holiday cards!! Can you believe it?  I swear, the older I get, the faster that clock ticks.  My calendar is already filling up with holiday photo sessions and I'm mentally prepping myself to be non-stop busy for the rest of the year....thank goodness I thrive on busy! :)

To help you out with your holiday budget, I'm doing a giveaway, sponsored by Shutterfly, for $50.00 off your total order!!  Check out their Special Offers page to see all the amazing cards and gifts that you can get from them.  I've been doing my Christmas cards through Shutterfly for several years now. :)

And if you're absolutely Shutterfly obsessed, here's all the ways that you can see what they're up to!

Shutterfly Social Media
Facebook 
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram: Shutterfly
Google+
Blog

Now I need to figure out which design I'm going to get for my own cards!!  Aghhh, too many options!!

GIVEAWAY

One lucky Avery James Photography reader will win $50.00 off of their total Shutterfly order!  (Cannot be combined with other promos and does not include shipping).

MANDATORY ENTRY

Comment below and tell me your favorite thing about the winter holiday season!  Be sure to leave your email address as well so that i can contact you if you win!

EXTRA ENTRIES

(Do any or all of the following, leaving a separate comment for each entry.)

• "Like" Avery James Photography on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AveryJamesPhotography (Leave Facebook name)
• Post a comment on my Avery James Photography Facebook page or on one of the photos (one entry only)
• Share my Avery James Photography Facebook page with your friends on your Facebook page (one entry only)
• Follow @AveryJamesPhoto on Twitter (leave twitter ID)
• Tweet about the giveaway (one entry only)

This giveaway ends at 11:59pm Pacific Time on October 29, 2012.  The winner will be selected by random draw and will have 24 hours to respond to my notification email before another winner is selected.

Good luck!!! :) :)

2010 Holiday Cards :)

So it looks like I was finally able to decide on my holiday card design this year!  Remember me fretting about picking a design in this post?  Well I initially was going to order 4 different designs all with the same set of pictures (I put 2 pictures on the inside of the card as well - the one in my header and another one from a shoot we did for Busted Tees under the Blue Olive company name that I share with a friend - I'll update with the link once I post them)...but 2 of the designs I like wouldn't allow me to do the pictures on the inside of the card....so I gave in and just decided to do all 50 of my cards with the below design.  I think it looks classy which was the look I was hoping to achieve....

Oh and the pic on the cover is one I took today while we were at the Huntington Gardens in San Moreno, CA.  I'll post more from our trip at another time.

I got the 5x7 folded cards in a glossy finish....cost me almost $9.00 in shipping, but I think they're going to look so nice....I keep going back and forth trying to decide if the matte was going to look a little higher quality....but then decided the pics would look better printed glossy....but I don't know....I was torturing myself trying to decide so I just went with my first instincts.  Oh I hate making decisions sometimes, I wish I had a magic crystal that would tell me if my choice was going to be the right one...wouldn't that be awesome??  :)

Well here's the outside of the card, I don't know how to show the inside....whatcha think??  Did I make a good choice??  :)

Plaid Bliss Christmas 5x7 folded card

Make a statement with Shutterfly Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Would it be weird to send 20 different holiday cards to each family on our list?

...so, would it?  Because I'm having a really hard time choosing between Shutterfly's gazillion different holiday card designs!  If I could just go through and check yes/no on each one, then order all the 'yes-es' - one of each for every friend and family member, then just mail them a package of cards this year with our family photos plastered on them - that would make life that much easier.  :)  But I'm guessing that you're all saying - "Yes, Crystal...that would be weird...and a bit obsessive....and just plain creepy."  What?  You mean everyone doesn't want a wall full of cards of my family for their very own home??  OK, OK...well, what would you do?

I received this absolutely awesome opportunity to blog about Shutterfly and their 2010 Christmas and holiday cards, and in return - I get 50 free photo cards for myself this year!  Great because I was just thinking recently about how I probably wouldn't be sending any out this year...but I guess I am now!  Plus, I love Shutterfly...I use them to develop all my family snapshots for albums and stuff like that, and I have 3 of their photobooks at home that I've put together that I absolutely treasure.

So that's the good part...the hard part is trying to figure out which design I want to use for my 50 cards!  I can't even decide what picture I'm going to use yet...I think it's going to be just Caydan in the picture this year...and I'd like to use just one picture for the whole card....I'm thinking of using the sunset picture of Caydan up there in my blog header...or maybe this one here:

I typically drift towards full color pictures, but so many of Shutterfly's designs look really good with black and white pictures....but it's just not really my style....what's a girl to do?

Here's a few that caught my eye in their Christmas card designs...I like the black one cause I'm typically just a fan of the darker colors in general (couldn't you tell from my blog??)...what do you think?

I kinda really like this one too though....but I can't tell if I like it just because the picture of the little girl in it is adorable and fits so well with the design.  I would also need to make sure the words and everything are going to show through on whichever picture I use...I'll have to play around with it I guess...

And then for those of you who don't celebrate Christmas, but you still send out cards for other various winter holidays or just for fun, Shutterfly has a more generic selection of "holiday" cards to choose from as well - Shutterfly Holiday Cards  :)

So after I finish designing my Christmas cards, then I'll probably mosey on over to check out Shutterflys's 2011 calendars....because if you know me, then you'll know I have a weird thing for calendars...I usually have from 3-5 different calendars all at one time...and if I can personalize them, then they're that much better!

So this is my dilemma - which design do I pick for our cards this year?...and now back to my original question - would it be weird to send 20 different holiday cards to each family on our list?  I think not....  :)