Design Crafters

Thinking ahead is a great way to create a low stress holiday season. I am ordering some of our photo holiday cards, which I will personalize with a picture of me in the garden or with some of the apples I have harvested.

Another way to plan ahead is to preserve seasonal produce and give away at Thanksgiving, Hannukah or Christmas. One of my favorite is homemade applesauce. Now is the perfect time to harvest apples and get them in the pot for a quick side or gift. Here’s how it works:

If you have an apple tree, like I do, then you have an over abundance of apples right now. Pick a couple of bucketfulls and bring them inside to clean. Get a large stock pot and put it on the stove.

Clean and slice the apples…cutting the core out and removing the seeds. Place them in the stock pot, adding a bit of apple juice or water to prevent burning.

Add your favorite apple pie spices, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and sugar to taste. When the apples have cooked until soft, add to food processor and pulse until smooth. Preserve in traditional cans, setting aside until November and December.

When the start of the holiday season rolls around, pull out the jars and add festive tags, ribbons or recipe cards. Combine with a photo holiday card depicting the apples (or you!) and you  have an awesome, personalized gift!

The Sugar Plum Fairy’s suite, the smell of fresh Christmas trees, the taste of gingerbread cookies:  What’s your holiday moment?  Everyone has something, some event or food or book (or even a piece of music) that makes it feel like the holidays.  Each year, a few weeks before Thanksgiving, my family and I start planning a trip to the local Christmas tree farm. It’s a wonderful tradition we began before the children were even born. It has sort of become the unofficial start to our holiday season, and a very lovely way to kick it off, too. Hayrides, hot cocoa, baked goods, holiday greenery, Christmas carols playing in the background, and acres and acres of future Christmas trees.

My family and I first went to the Christmas tree farm with some friends, who had asked us to go with them. While there, they turned to us and asked us to take some photos of their whole family, standing in front of the rows of beautiful live Christmas trees. We were happy to snap a few shots with their camera for them, and then we found “the perfect” tree for our home, so we quickly forgot taking those few family photos. But our friends didn’t forget, and a few weeks later, we opened our mailbox to find a Christmas card from them, with one of the photos we’d taken for them on the card smiling back at us.

Their Christmas card photo was fantastic!  In fact, it turned out so well that we decided we would like to “borrow” the idea for our own cards someday. And that’s just what we did. It’s fun to look back at our little collection of photos from the Christmas tree farm that we’ve amassed now; each and every one of them was taken for that year’s Christmas card.  It’s a great tradition that the kids and adults alike look forward to each holiday season.

While we are on the topic of printed photo Christmas cards,
I should mention that if you would rather not have your photos
printed onto your Christmas cards, you can always have multiple prints
developed and select one of our "photo borders." Within these really
cute Christmas borders you can attach your own photos. All of these Christmas
cards have foil and/or some sort of embossing.

Some of these photo cards have die cut slits diagonally across from each other
in which you can slip your photo or many you can use either double sided tape,
a glue stick or rubber cement to attach your Christmas photos.

There are many darling designs from which to choose in this Photo Christmas
Card category. All of our examples show family shots, but we have had
businesses buy these as well, adding a real personal touch buy sending a photo
of the office staff.