project organization :: all those holiday cards

I had big plans this weekend to complete yet another project... my Christmas card montage.  For both 2011 and 2012... Yeah.  I'm a little behind.  I even took all of the 2012 holiday cards off the display wall finally (insert sad face here)...

I even went out and purchased a new 3.5" square punch (my other one is totally MIA).  Then... I sat down... got all of my cards out...  ready to punch away... and I was able to punch one.meesley.card.  Yep.  You heard right... one card... one teeny, tiny square.... then my square punch broke.  Straight up stopped working.  I'm hoping to return it soon and still knock this project out in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, I thought I'd re-post my thoughts on the Christmas card montage from a few years ago...

I wish I could take credit for this... but I can't. This is another genius idea from Ali Edwards. 

Ali basically takes all of the Christmas cards and photos she receives for the year and creates a simple photo montage with all of them. I love it. I have always been one of those people that keeps cards (Christmas, birthday, thank yous, valentines... you name it, I keep it), but really they just sit in a box somewhere stored away. I am in love with this idea. At first, I was a little tentative about cutting and cropping my family and friends with a square paper punch... but I must say, it was kind of liberating. Nice to let my Type A personality live on the wild side a little. I just put the photo or card in my square punch, found my favorite part, and punched away. Here's the basic process...

I ordered this awesome square punch, the Marvy Uchida. I totally copied Ali again here, and purchased the same square punch she recommended on her blog. This punch was the perfect size, and for the most part allowed me to crop everyone inside the square. There were a few families who apparently don't like to stand very close to one another during Christmas photos... and for them, I'm sad to say I had to either separate them into two squares, or cut off some ears...

After punching out all the cards, I had to decide on some type of layout. I tried not to be too OCD about this, and really just tried to mix up the colors. You'll notice that I tried to select a good mix of both pictures and good old fashioned Christmas cards. I like the variation of it all.

Then I just used my favorite adhesive to paste the squares on some red 8x11 paper. I knew I would be using 8x11 sheets, so I let that determine how many squares would go on each page. I changed my layout ever-so-slightly (I guess the OCD did get the best of me) and called it finished. I ended up with 4 pages with 12 squares each.

A few years ago, I put these in the back of my December Daily book... but seeing how I'm super behind on those too... I'm just aiming to getting my cards on paper.  What about you?  How do you organize your holiday cards?

project organization :: january cards

Last  week I shared about how I organize my card-hoarding collection... all of those zillions of cards you receive each year.  But what about the cards that you send out every year??  For you, this might be your family's annual Christmas card... for us, it's the infamous January card:)

We have been mailing out January cards for 7 years now... and for 7 years now I've been trying to figure out the best way to preserve these fun cards.  Then it hit me.  An album.  I've had this beautiful blank Kolo album sitting on my desk for months now...  just waiting for the perfect project.  And since I deemed February my "finish-all-those-unfinished-projects-month" I figured there was no time like the present...

This was by far the easiest project I've ever done.  The hardest part was managing to find all of our year's past January cards... 2010 and 2011 are completely MIA.  But once I was able to scrounge up most of our January cards, all I did was slap some acid-free tape on the card itself and stick them right to my album.  Technically I needed 2 copies of each year... one for the front and one for the back... which yeah... wasn't really a big deal until I realized I couldn't find 2 copies for the very fist year...

Welcome to 2007.  The birth of the January cards.  I hadn't quite perfected the font on the front yet.  This is also the year that I was obsessed with putting ribbon on everything.

2008.  We fixed the font and went all out with color photos on the front and the back... big time.

2009.  We scaled back this year and went solid black & white. 

 2010. And 2011.  Use your imagination... Hoping these bad boys surface very soon.

2012. We finally upgraded to professional photos.  2011 and 2012 cover photos are compliments of the talented Shaelyne Meadows.

2013.  My favorite year for sure... but I say this every year once I get my January card shipment in.  2013 cover photo compliments of Firm Anchor Photography.

So, there you have it.  My somewhat-completed January card album.  This should be a fairly simple project to keep up with over the coming years.  And I love seeing the "snapshot" of our year-to-year life with each turn of the page.  Even more excited to see our January cards fill up with children in the coming years:)  

If your family sends out holiday cards every year, this would be such an easy way to corral them all together.  Do you already do something similar?  I'd love to hear.

for all the card hoarders out there...

One of my resolutions for February was to actually finish some projects.  My card-hoarding project was first on the list.  A long, long time ago I blogged about my card-hoarding issues and my simple solution.  You can read the original post here.

You see, I have a slight card hoarding problem.  I can't seem to throw away my snail mail... it doesn't matter if it's a thank you card, a birthday card, a graduation announcement, baby announcement, wedding invitation... whatever it is, I keep it.  Told you.  Problems.

So.  What to do about this little problem of mine??  Well, before anyone calls the Hoarders show on me... I figured I would attempt to bring some order to my card collecting obsession.

It's a pretty simple solution.  I just decided to punch a couple of holes in all of my cards and put some rings in the top of them all.  I gathered up all of my materials first: a gigantor hole punch (I use the We R Memory Keepers Crop-a-Dile), some fun tags for the front of your cards, laminating sheets (optional), some rings to corral everything together, and then of course, a shit ton of cards.

I used my awesome vintage-looking number stamp set to stamp the year on the back of some fun die-cuts.  I love the simple look of these.

After I stamped my die-cut tags, I ran them through my laminating machine.  This is probably not necessary, but I think it will make sure everything holds up for years and years of card hoarding... ahem, I mean memory keeping.

After all of my tags were laminated, I trimmed them down and punched holes in each top corner.  I went ahead and stamped 2 tags for each year that I was catching up on.  I learned early on that there is no way I can fit a year's worth of cards on one set of rings.  I told you guys... I have a crap-ton of cards.  Stop judging me. 

My favorite rings are these mesh cable rings from 7gypsies.  They seem to fit the most cards without getting too bulky.

Here's the finished product.  I love the simple tag with the year stamped on it.  And I love that you can see all of the different cards peeking out from behind.

I love that I can flip through the billions of cards like a book.  For the most part, the cards are in chronological order... so it's almost like a little snapshot of our year... birthday cards... anniversary cards... thank you notes... graduation announcements... wedding invitations... I love it.

And like I said... my card hoarding problem is so out of control that we needed 2 sets per year.  Issues people, I know.

My stack for 2013 is pretty small so far, but I'm adding cards to the pile as they come in.  I'll probably take a day to punch holes in them in a month or so.  I love how accomplished this simple project makes me feel.  While yes, my card hoarding issues continue (and show no signs of early recovery)... this little project makes me feel like the most organized hoarder out there;)

What about you?  Do you keep your snail mail?  What do you do with it?  Are you in the card-hoarders-anonymous group too?  

the lost art of thank you note writing

 

Once upon a time... long, long ago... people used to handwrite their thank you's with pen and paper.  They even used this little thing called the postal service to send their gratitude across the country.  But now, in the fast-paced world of emails, Facebook, and texting... rarely do pen and paper even cross paths anymore.  It's a shame really.

Don't mishear me... a texted "thank you" is better than no "thank you" at all.  But there is just something about a tangible thank you card that simply cannot be replaced.  Call me old fashioned, but I sure do fancy a good ol' thank you letter:)

There's not much to it.  My mom had me writing thank you notes as a kid, and the basics are still the same...

A simple greeting (dear so-and-so)... 

Thank you for the (fill in the blank).  You are awesome... the bees knees... cooler than the other side of the pillow... whatever... (just say something nice).

Love, 
(your name here)

See.  Easy as pie.  Address the front of your envelope... if you're feeling crazy, stamp the back... then slap a postage stamp on there and tah-dah!  You're done.  They don't even make you lick the stamps anymore... they're self-adheasive... I know, the world's getting all high-tech, right?

Go ahead... write an old fashioned thank you note... tell someone how grateful you are for them.  You will feel as good sending it, as they will receiving it... promise.

january cards :: a procrastinator's christmas card

January cards.
...aka, we-can't-seem-to-get-our-act-together-in-December-cards.

We love them around here.  We've been sending them out since 2006, I think.  I've always loved holiday greeting cards... both giving and receiving them.  I was one of those bazaar college students that sent out Christmas cards and update letters since I was probably 18... what can I say?  I love a good excuse to put something in the mail.

Our list gets more and more ridiculously out of control every year.  I keep threatening to put a cap on it, but that never happens.  It's a once-a-year mail splurge that I'm totally okay with.

I also have this problem where I want to put a ridiculous amount of stuff on the envelopes... address labels... return address stamps... washi tape... a fun stamp on the back... stickers... you get the idea.  I'm not quite sure what it is that possesses me with a desire to decorate every square inch of an envelope, but I'm working on toning it down.

This year I put sealed all of the envelopes with washi tape, then started stamping the back of the envelopes with a fun little "with love" stamp.  I got about half way through the stack before I realized that I have a serious problem, and decided the washi tape was plenty enough... put.the.stamp.down.

I get really weird about my postage stamps too.  I'm usually one of those obnoxious people at the post office... holding up the line... asking to see all of the new stamp designs... looking for something that might coordinate with this year's January card envelope selection.  Yeah.  That did not happen this year.  Our list was so out of control that I decided it was best to just ask for a roll (or 2) of stamps, rather than a billion little books of stamps.  God bless the USA, right?

It's a big endeavor every year, but one I'm happy to tackle in January... and not December.  And to me, that once-a-year communication with friends and family both near and far is totally worth it.  And of course, I can always count on Little Cat to help out with the envelopes.

You can see 2012's January cards here... and 2011's January cards here.