out-smarting the system

They may not be the cutest things you’ve ever seen and you may not want to keep it on your refrigerator all-year-round. You may not even care to display it through January. BUT, I got a better deal than 95% of the Christmas card sending population. Guaranteed. {Ok, I don’t really know the statistics on this one, but I have a pretty good hunch-of-a-feeling that this is true.}

Think about it. The Christmas card industry is huge. Everywhere you go, you can get cute templates for that simple Christmas message, perfectly placed right next to that adorable family picture you’ve been dying to debut. Christmas cards are like that statement-piece that simply wraps up your year, while wishing your friends and family a Merry Christmas {the message I prefer over “Happy Holidays”}, as long as the message fits in a space of approximately 35 characters {give or take a few}. I love those cards. In fact, I enjoy browsing the new designs as soon as Shutterfly announces their sale for early-Christmas card purchasers … in October. {Who has their Christmas pictures ready by then?? Oh, ya, the people who get that really good deal}.

Anyways, in an attempt to out-smart the system in order to avoid the average forty cents to a whopping buck-fifty PER card, I made my own. Thanks to Picasa’s collage making skills and picnik’s cool fonts, I made our cards and promptly sent them to good-ol’ Wal-mart for printing as a 4x6 picture. I ordered a few 5x7’s, which cost me a good 30 cents more per pic, but the majority of my cards/pictures cost me …. drumroll puh-lease … 9 {nine} cents each. That means, I spent about $3.45 on my Christmas cards. Total. {not including the few 5x7’s I got … they cost about $5 total, which is still a pretty good deal if you ask me!}

AND, when Wal-Mart saw that I turned my picture into a card, they even threw in a stack of envelopes, for exactly zero {0} cents. I am quite proud of myself {if you can’t tell}.

Here is a sneak peak {for the lucky people that tune-in to my little blog}: