Design Crafters

Photo Christmas Cards take on an extra quality when they are Personalized.

As an example, you might want to think about a Photo Christmas Card with a greeting bearing the signature of your family. And as for the Photo element, that could go right beneath your family’s signed greeting.

Well, I’ve just described the sample Photo Christmas Card known as XDM8431-53. There it is, at the upper right of this post.

This unique red photo card with red foil outlines and bubbles is a trifold card that pulls open from the top to reveal a 3 1/2″ x 2 1/4″ photo that can be mounted using a glue stick or double sided tape.

The card measures 5″ x 4 1/2″ and comes with a white gold foil-lined envelope. I should also tell you that the design elements of this card add enough extra weight to the card that you’ll need extra postage.

25 of these cards cost $40. With personalization, as is shown here, the cost is only $5.50 more at $45.50.

50 of these cards cost $69.50. With personalization, the cost is only $5 more at $74.50.

And keep in mind, the cost of envelope imprinting is free.

Photo Christmas Cards with photos taken of your children doing fun things in other seasons can really be fun as well as effective.

Do you have a photo similar to the sample photo in the card you see at the upper right? A tisket a tasket. Yes, I know the basket is pink and not “green and yellow” like the nursery rhyme goes, but you get the idea.

This sample photo is used to show how you might want to set up Photo Christmas Card B2-X-8697-N69R-PC-KE.

You’ll notice the  green holly leaves with bright red berries and gold foil swirls and stars on an ecru background.

This photo card is perfect for mounting your own photo either with a glue stick or double sided tape. It will accommodate a 3 ½ “ x 5” or 4” x 6” photo of vertical orientation.
As for the card itself, it measures 5 5/8″ x 7 7/8 ” and comes with an ecru gold foil-lined envelope.

25 of these cards costs $43.50. With personalization, the cost is only $6 more at $49.50.

50 of these cards costs $72.50. With personalization, the cost is only $9 more at $81.50.

And remember, the cost of envelope imprinting is free!

With all the talk this season about 
"Holiday" this and "Holiday " that, we at Design Crafters
have seen a bit of a rebellion against that campaign in that more and more of
our customers are looking for Christmas cards that say Merry Christmas - not
Holiday Greetings, etc. If they can’t find a Christmas card they like that has
Merry Christmas on the front, then they at least will select or create a verse
that says "Merry Christmas."

I even had one gentleman tell me that I had lost a sale because none of our
tropical Christmas cards said "Merry Christmas" on the front. I think
many today are balking at the whole idea of replacing "Christmas"
with the term "Holiday" at every opportunity.
It seems that fewer people care about being poetically correct any more. Of
course a lot of businesses are overly concerned about offending other cultures,
so they are still looking for the "generic Christmas cards." Some
businesses don’t care.  Overall, the main objection seems to be coming
from those selecting Christmas cards for personal use.

To see our selection of "Merry Christmas" cards, you can visit our
"Merry Christmas" category for a nice selection.

Does your business serve the international community? Are
you sending Christmas cards to businesses in other countries or perhaps
different cultures? If so, you cannot go wrong with our International Christmas
cards. These international holiday cards are global in their appeal in that
many have the globe as part of the design. Many feature international flags
from many different nations.

Most of our international holiday cards have a festive appearance and yet are
generic in nature. It would be very difficult to offend anyone from any culture
by sending any of our international Christmas cards if that is a concern.

Another category that can serve the purpose of sending Christmas cards to
different cultures is the "Peace" Christmas cards category. Again,
this peace category has an international appeal. Most of these cards speak of
Peace and feature the Peace Dove. Many are also very global. You don’t have to
be international to enjoy these Christmas cards, but they are perfect if you
are.

We discussed last time about putting your company logo
inside your Christmas cards to add some class to your presentation. That still
is a great way to go, but becoming even more popular - probably because it add
some uniqueness is having your logo printed on the front of your Christmas cards . More and more businesses are having their logo printed on the front
rather than on the inside of their Christmas cards.

If you don’t have a logo, you can still stand out with one of our "Front
Imprint" Christmas cards in that you can have your company name printed on
the front of these cards. You can say something like, "From all of us at
Design Crafters" in a pretty script of something like that. Of course not
all cards are conducive to printing on the front. There would have to be room
where there is no other printing or embossing.

Another thing you can do if you don’t have a logo and you want to show off your
company name, is to choose one of our "Die Cut" Christmas cards in
which your company name is printed on the inside of the cards but it is
positioned such that is shows through the rectangular die cut opening much like
the logo cards shows the logo through the (usually) round opening in the front
of the card.

How long will it take for me to get my Christmas cards once I’ve ordered?

It depends partially on where you live. Unless otherwise
requested, all our Christmas card shipments are sent UPS ground. All Christmas cards ship from
the manufacturer within 3-5 business days of receipt of your order
(except cards requiring special artwork, like a photo card, custom verse or logo. They take 5-7 days in house before shipping).

The shipping time itself
will will range from 1-6 days depending on your location and your
shipping method of choice. These cards  are processed and will be
shipped from 5 different locations. You are notified at checkout from
where your Christmas cards will be shipped so you can calculate your cost before
ordering to determine the best method of shipping to fit your needs.

What can I expect to pay for the shipping of my Christmas cards?

We charge only what we expect the actual shipping charges are
going to be for us, plus a small handling fee which is passed on to us
by the manufacturer. We are directly connected with the UPS database
system so our rates are very accurate. You can tell exactly what your
cost will be as you fill out the order form. You will have a choice of
shipping method and be shown a price for each so you can choose the
best method for your needs.

It seems that most businesses are getting really fancy when
it comes to Christmas cards. I would say that among the business orders we receive,
at least one fourth of them have a request for us to print their logo or custom
verse or both. We love special orders because we know that when the time and
care is taken to create such a masterpiece, it will be unique and will stand
out in a crowd. It may even be a show stopper.

Unfortunately, to do something so special does involve an extra expense. All of
this is explained on our website in great detail, but I will try to address
some of the major issues here. First of all, a single solid color logo with no
shading is a flat $40 to burn a plate with your special image to be printed. By
the way, we always email you a .pdf proof for your approval before anything custom is
printed. We usually can get that back to you within a day or two of your
submitted order.

If your logo has some shading which would require screening, there is an
additonal $60 for that. If your logo is two colors, there is an additional $60
for the second color run. If there is tight registration (where the colors are
touching or even almost touching) there may be an additional fee. The best thing
to do is to submit your Christmas card order and logo to us for us to evaluate
and we will get back to you with the cost to print your order.

We sometimes can print multiple colors inside your Christmas cards, but each order would have to be evaluated
on a case by case basis. If you would like to do something rather special, just
let us know what you have in mind and we can let you know if it is feasible and
if so, the cost, so you can decide. If you would like to read all about our
special instructions on our Christmas card logo info page here.

We get many requests daily for sample holiday cards or a catalog to pass around the office. We are more than happy to send a catalog but it only contains approximately 100 images of our cards. It is a good representation and is filled with what our suppliers have considered "favorites" for the season.

The only problem is that we have over 1200 images of Christmas cards on our website so you are missing a lot by just ordering a catalog and not taking some time to surf our site. We have over 50 categories to help you narrow your search. Then…if you see any Christmas cards of which you would like to have samples, there is a form right on our site you can copy and paste the card numbers into, enter your mailing information and we will have them sent right out to you. We actually recommend requesting samples if you have time, so you can judge the quality for yourself. If having a Christmas catalog would help you, just fill out the sample form and instead of entering card numbers, just type in "catalog."

Why does every mall have a "Santa Village with a Santa
sitting on a throne and children clamoring to sit on his lap? Stores and malls
have been revved up about Christmas since the late 1800’s when Macy’s started
the tradition with their Christmas window displays and started staying open
until midnight on Christmas Eve. The
whole tradition snowballed from there.

In America
today, the short weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are by far the
biggest retail sales event of the whole year. The survival of most retail
stores depends on how well they do during the Christmas buying season. It is
for that reasons that the retailers come up with all the advertising, special
deals and long hours. They do whatever they can to stir up a buying frenzy
getting customers into a Christmas buying spirit and to attract them to their
stores. Festive decorations, big ads, Santa’s Villages and all the rest are
part of that process.

Most Christmas cards are also sold during that time frame, putting a real
burden on the greeting card industry - especially for those who personalize Christmas
cards for business. With all the online ordering of not only Christmas cards
but all kinds of gifts, causes a real burden on delivery systems such as UPS,
FedEx and USPS.

There’s just something about having a white Christmas that makes it perfect and complete. It’s so exciting, especially for children to wake up and find snow on the ground - even better yet, coming down on Christmas morning. As cold and dreary as a day like that can be, it promotes warm fuzzies when it happens on Christmas. Many children get sleds for christmas and that can be a bit of a let down if they have to wait until Jan or Feb to use them!

No one in the tropics expects to have a white Chirstmas but they can still visualize the perfectness of it all. Personally, it would be hard for it to feel like Christmas to me if it wasn’t at least cold!

The song "I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas" started it all written by Irving Berlin for the movie "Holiday Inn" back in 1942 and sung by Bing Crosby. It is one of the best selling hits of all time and will be played many years after his death

Here are the lyrics:

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,
Just like the ones I used to know,
Where the treetops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow.