It’s November… you know what that means! Yep. Time to start preparing for the holidays!  Poor Thanksgiving.  It never gets the attention it deserves.

When Halloween is over and I shift gears, one of the first things I start thinking about is my holiday cards.  I love everything about “card season”–both designing my own cards and receiving them.  There was a time I even made my own cards (I used to have a stationery-design business), but now I usually turn to Tiny Prints to do that for me.  I love their cards, and I use them for almost all my stationery needs these days.  I have also occasionally used Shutterfly for various cards, and I think Minted uses the most beautiful paper ever.  After admiring others’ cards from Minted for several years, I decided to get my holiday cards this year from them.  I must say that I love them so much!!  My little girls say they are our best cards yet.  :)  They even came with these little vellum papers that you insert so that the ink from the pictures on the inside doesn’t transfer to the other side of the card where our names are signed.  Brilliant!

Putting together a card to send out is something I truly enjoy.  But I’m pretty sure that isn’t a universal feeling… so to help you brainstorm, I have compiled 100 photos under various themes to get you thinking.

As you’ll see, some of the pictures are sweet, some are creative, and some are downright hilarious. Getting a photo for your card doesn’t have to be the worst part of Christmas–have fun with it and think outside the box.  The very first picture was sent to me by my friend a few years back.  It was the result of a photo session gone bad.  While that shot wasn’t what they were going for, they certainly succeeded in spreading some holiday cheer with their cards… I remember laughing so hard when we opened it!

So have an open mind, relax, and see how your pictures turn out.  Even if they aren’t “perfect”, they just might be your favorite cards yet!

Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate/referral links. Please click here for further explanation.

* Kudos to all the talented photographers and bloggers from whom I collected these photos.  If you see your photo here and it’s not sourced to you, or if anything should be corrected in any way, please let me know!!  I really want to make sure everything in this post is as accurate as it can be.  I hope this post sends a little traffic your way so others can be impressed by your fine work, too!  :)  Thanks for making this fun post possible!

Online Card Companies:  More Details

I wrote a post with 125+ Family and Sibling Photos for Posing Ideas and Inspiration in May 2013 (please reference that for even more photo ideas!), and I thought some information I shared there about the card companies I like to use might be helpful here as well.  I’m pasting in an excerpt from that post below:

WHERE I ORDER MY CARDS

Tiny Prints has been my go-to company (for not only Christmas cards but also for invitations, birth announcements, thank you notes, etc.) for the past five years or so.  One time I wasn’t happy with how they cropped a picture (without my approval) when printing my 225 (!) holiday cards, and they reprinted them and sent them to me overnight, no questions asked.  I received my new 225 cards in about 36 hours.  Pretty impressive.  They also contacted me once when they felt that one of my pictures was slightly blurry (but I couldn’t tell on the computer screen), and so I was able to switch out that photo before printing. They have top-notch service, and I love their designs.  They also have an enormous selection.

Minted is right at the top of my list now as well!  I used them for the first time last year for my holiday cards, and they were my favorite cards yet.  They included vellum paper inserts to be sure that the ink didn’t transfer inside my folded cards when mailed (because that does happen, especially if you have a picture printed on the inside).  Minted also has the best envelopes you’ll find (I love the brown kraft paper myself), and they print on really beautiful paper as well.  If you really have your act together, you can even upload your recipient address list at their site, and they will print the addresses for you on the envelopes for FREE!!!  I am definitely this company’s newest #1 fan!

I have also always loved Shutterfly.  I typically order photo thank you notes there after the holidays so we can send out a little glimpse of how we celebrated, along with our note of gratitude.

CLICK ON THE COLLAGE BELOW FOR EVEN MORE GREAT SITES TO FIND CARDS!  

If a card catches your eye in the collage below, please know that I found each one at Minted. 

Our Family’s Recent Holiday Cards

And when all else fails, just find a little humor in the situation!  Chances are, you’ll look back on the less-than-perfect photos with a laugh one day, and they will always remind you of that crazy stage in life when getting a nice family photo was next to impossible!  Someday when your family pictures are full of cooperative smiles and people looking at the camera, you will miss this stage when you never knew what you were going to get!!  :)

Whew!  I hope these 100 photos have helped you come up with some ideas for your cards this year. Happy Holidays everybody!  :)  Enjoy the special season ahead.

What photo ideas do you have?

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