One of my favorite things about the Holiday season is giving and receiving Christmas cards. I had so much fun making our cards this year. (Read about my experience with Classic Kids Photography here.) I was completely and utterly obsessed with how they turned out. Ok, fine. I’ll show you our card again. Haha. Twist my arm.
Gah, isn’t our dog the cutest?! I cannot get enough.
But let’s be real, Christmas cards are kind of a pain in the butt. It’s such a process! From taking and/or selecting the photo you are going to use (multiple in my case), to verifying your address list, to stuffing, addressing, stamping and actually mailing them – you are looking at hours of work. Maybe even days. And! They are so costly!
I started receiving cute photo cards in the mail in 2013. This is approximately the year in my life that everyone I know started getting engaged, married, and having babies. I absolutely love receiving them and felt a huge sense of guilt throwing these beautiful cards away. Now that I know what actually goes into the process of a legit Christmas card (or any photo card for that matter), my appreciation has skyrocketed.
So, what do I do with all these wonderful cards? I put them into binders! It’s ridiculously easy too. I came up with the idea when I happened to see a super cute mini binder in the Target Dollar Spot. Target doesn’t have any on their website currently, but you can find comparable ones on Amazon. (Check this cool one out here.) I put all the cards in sleeve protectors in chronological order. Sometimes we receive cards that are just slightly too big for the sleeve protectors though. I just trim the edges until the card fits in the sleeve. So far, I’ve never had to cut anyone’s face off. Haha. There is usually enough wiggle room to trim the edges if you need to.
Since I’ve been saving these cards for four years now, it is so fun to look back through them. It’s actually kind of funny because I have a lot of our friends and family members life stories documented in these binders. It starts with their engagement photos on their save the dates, then their wedding photos on thank you notes or Christmas cards, and then of course the birth announcements, first birthday party invitations, etc! The best part is that I have four years of memories stored in two tiny binders. They take up very little space in our home, but bring me lots and lots of joy.
XO, Lauren