Design Crafters

With as many challenges as there are when it comes to having divorced parents, there can be an upside. A single mom/ divorcee friend of mine made a really good point the other day (well, the other month) when she turned a potentially upsetting situation into something positive.  Although she and her child’s dad have been divorced since he was just a baby, he seemed to still have some struggles of sadness going between the two homes and families, especially at Christmas.

Being the brilliant mom she is, she looked for any positive and found it. She reminded him that in many ways he luckier than most kids. He gets to celebrate Christmas twice! That means Santa comes twice, and he even he gets twice as many wonderful Christmas dinners and delicious desserts. They even get to do two sets of photo Christmas cards. Ok, so that part may not be as fun for a kid, but it can be if you make it a really creative photo for your cards.

So if you know any kids that get a little down this coming Christmas, remember what my friend said to her kid. It may help out. Remember to make Christmas memorable.

White squirrels are so uncommon that some people don’t even believe they exist, to the point they actually argue about it. (I personally don’t understand why it’s so hard to believe considering practically any animal can produce albino offspring.) But Barbara Kenney has proof that will put this argument to a rest. She actually took a picture of one and used it for her photo Christmas cards one year, with a message reading “Wishing you a white Christmas that isn’t too squirrelly”.

White squirrels are rare to see for a few reasons. #1. The albino jean is recessive and uncommon. #2.  They tend to stand out and get “picked off” by predators before they have a chance to reproduce and pass on the albino jean. (Thus making it more uncommon) #3 They’re often very elusive and skittish. (They’d have to be in order to avoid being singled out and eaten).

This article reminded me of the most human squirrel I’ve ever known. As a kid, our yard a was a haven for many squirrels. There was one however that stood out to us.  We named him Chipper because he was always chippering away at us in a very unusual way.  He seemed to have a keen interest in communicating with us. It got to the point that we would simply call his name and he’d come running.  I swear one day he actually waved at us as if to say thank you for the treat. One day he simply disappeared, but I will never forget him.

The original article about the white squirrel can be found at:
http://www.dailypressandargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080312/NEWS01/803120319/1002

In yesterday’s photo Christmas cards blog we started to talk about photo gift cards. Well, today I’d like to share with you some tidbits of information about gift cards you may find very useful.

Gift cards are great gifts because it allows people to get what they really want. There are however some things to pay attention to.

As mentioned yesterday, if the company has any indication of going out of business, you may want to avoid purchasing a gift card from them. The recipient may not be able to redeem it in time and that would be money down the drain for you.

Pay attention to the print on the back. In some states there is a law that gift cards can’t expire. They can however start to take off fees if not used within a certain timeframe, until there’s nothing left on them. It’s usually two years, which is my opinion is a reasonable timeframe to use it. The policy is usually printed on the back.

I’ve actually heard of people giving their non-used gift cards to their friends and family as gifts. In one case the gift card was so old that there was nothing left on it due to inactive fees. Whoops. In the second case, it was a gift card the recipient originally gave the giver. Double whoops. In the third case, it was so old the company didn’t even exist anymore. So be very careful when you re-gift gift cards.

An interesting article I ran across on CBSNews.com regarding gift cards, sparked the topic of today’s blog. Although the article was bad news (which I’ll go into in a moment), I wanted to share some good news first.

Did you know you can make not only photo Christmas cards, but photo gift cards as well?! Two years ago my son received a Toys R Us gift card with a picture of him and his Auntie on it. She apparently went online, ordered the gift card and uploaded the desired picture she wanted on it. Talk about a great idea! That made the gift card so much more special to him. Of course once he used it up, he kept the card even though there’s no money left on it. - Just a fun thought for you.

Going back to today’s article….
It turns out that Sharper Image gift cards are currently worthless. The company apparently filed bankruptcy and announced they are temporarily suspending the acceptance of gift cards. But don’t throw them out yet, just incase they start accepting them again (which has been known to happen with other companies).

That brings up a good point though. If you have gift cards, it may be in your best interest to use them right away, just in case company goes out of business. Also, if you buy a gift card for someone, make sure it’s a store that doesn’t show signs of going out of business.

You can see the full article at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/03/business/main3902646.shtml

While searching online for photo Christmas card ideas, I ran across a funny story that has nothing to do with photo Christmas cards but for some reason popped up in the search. Having “funny story” in the title, it of course caught my attention.

Back in November this gentleman received a flyer from his credit card company stating he had earned 35,969 loyalty rewards points. He wasn’t even aware that his credit card company offered reward points. Nevertheless, he decided to take advantage of the offer and chose to buy an Apple iPod Classic 160GB.

After a few weeks of anticipation the brand new iPod finally arrived. This is where it gets weird. It appeared to be sent by BestBuy, which was probably who the credit card company teamed up with to be the fulfillment center for the loyalty rewards. Although it came from BestBuy, it was delivered in a large Subway “Wheat bread Dough Stick” box. (Had BestBuy teamed up with Subway?) The box was not only much bigger than the iPod but it also lacked any protection (ie. packing peanuts) to stop the iPod from bouncing around during shipment. Had BestBuy run out of boxes and packing peanuts?

To most people the entire situation would sound like some kind of a scam, but there was no money exchanged and the iPod works great. Just plain odd.

The full story can be viewed at:

http://advice.cio.com/bernard_golden/funny_bestbuy_story

It turns out photo Christmas cards are not as modern as one might think. I may not have been very common (or inexpensive) back in the 1920’s but it certainly wasn’t completely unheard of.

As LeAnn was sorting through her grandmothers old farm house attic she came across an old dust covered chest. Yes, it was the kind we always see in the movies portrayed as a treasure chest. Of course this kind of a chest always peaks some curiosity. As LeAnn opened it she found many special mementoes. Beneath a baby blessing/baptism gown, she discovered a box full of photos and Christmas Cards.

One set of Christmas cards stood out as this stack was all tied together with a ribbon. They were from the same family, dated 1920’s through the 1930’s. Each card was carefully hand made and had a photo pasted onto it of the family for each year there was a card.

When LeAnn asked her grandmother about it, a family secret was revealed. LeAnn’s grandmother was in fact raised by her Aunt and Uncle instead of her birth parents. When she was born her parents were dirt poor and couldn’t afford to raise her, so her Aunt and Uncle raised her as their own. As time went on, her grandmother’s birth parents (who she knew as Aunt and Uncle), became financially stable and had more children. By that time it would be best for her to stay with the parents she already knew. Every year her birth family would make it a point to send her handmade photo Christmas cards.  It wasn’t until her late teens she discovered the true relationship and realized why she was the only one to receive the only photo Christmas card they would make that year.

As parents we often envision the “perfect” pictures for our photo Christmas cards and think we know how it’s going to turn out. We even plan everything around making that vision happen and then nothing seems to go the way it “should have”.  Unfortunately children aren’t always predictable and can be very disagreeable. They seem to have their own idea as to how things should be done. Fortunately we parents have a choice. We can either see it as a disaster and let it ruin our mood, or we can get creative and make the best of it. Just as this mother did in the following example.
 
The plan was to take separate pictures of both her toddler girl and her baby son, then combine them on the same photo Christmas cards. These two kids were apparently very tired, hungry and not in the mood to pose. Every picture had a pout without fail. Instead of getting frustrated, mom decided to make the best of it by taking the most poutiest pictures, put them on the photo Christmas card and wrote the famous Christmas saying “better not pout”. The cards turned out to be a hit.

So now you know what you can do if your pictures don’t work out the way you thought.

Have fun.