Christmas Card Choices & a Give-Away!

I have had the pleasure of reviewing* two Christmas card options this holiday season...which means that, even though this year has been chaos beyond imagination, my Christmas cards are already done on December 1st! Miracle of miracles!

I chose to review Mistle Mail because I used it last year with great success and fell in love with the ease of this form of Christmas card delivery! Mistle Mail is offering all my readers a 25% discount on their service, which costs only $39.95 for unlimited delivery and online access. That's almost $10 in savings! Simply visit the site, design your card, and just before check-out, use the coupon code GATES2010. The discount will be reflected when you pay.

Mistle Mail is an online only service that allowed me to e-mail a beautiful Christmas greeting, photo and letter to everyone in my e-mail contact list. This service was easy, fast, fun, and affordable. I saved over $70 in postage alone! The only drawback to this service was that I didn't have a hard copy to mail out to older relatives who aren't online and the Grandmas, who like to put the Christmas photo up on display.

Here is a preview of the Mistle Mail card I sent this year. You can also access the entire card and the Christmas letter sent with it by clicking here to view the actual online version that is e-mailed out today.

This year, I decided to do a mix of print cards by snail mail and Mistle Mail for my large list of online-only contacts - Facebook friends, blog acquaintances, and the many friends and family from my own generation for whom I don't even have a physical address!

Studio Dayspring offers beautiful print cards, either flat or half-fold styles. I chose to review the flat card style because it allowed me to get all of my print cards for my budgeted price. The card prices start at $1.49 per flat card (25 cards or less) and $2.49 per folded card (25 cards or less). Dayspring Studio is currently offering free shipping on orders of 25 or more cards. One of the features I was most impressed by was the publishing tools, which are similar to those in Photoshop or Publisher, allowing you to send frames forward or backward and lending a lot of leeway in editing text on the card. The folded cards offer the additional feature allowing you to publish more photographs inside the card. Had budget not been a factor for me, I would have loved to use this feature to print individual photos of each child within the card!

Here is a preview of the cards I selected, two different photos and different verses. I liked the flexibility of ordering cards in 25 card bundles, which allowed me to select different designs. That makes the mailing more fun!

Finally, the give-away! Mistle Mail would like to give one dear reader 1 free Christmas mailing! To enter the drawing, please comment on this post below, telling me you would like to win. For one additional entry, mention http://mistlemail.com in a tweet, Facebook status, or blog post, and then comment here telling me you did so! Mistle Mail is a local family business that could use our support - let's stir up some online buzz to help them out. The drawing will end Friday, December 4th, giving you plenty of time to get your free card designed and sent!



*Disclaimer statement: Mistle Mail provided me a substantial discount on their product in exchange for this review and hosting their give-away. Dayspring Studio provided 50 cards for my review at no charge to me. However, I do not normally review products, and chose these two products because I have used them in the past and been pleased with them. My primary intent is to direct my readers to companies I would like to see receive additional business, and to pass on savings to my readers.