A Gift a Day Gift Thirty-Two: Photo Cards

This is kind of a combination gift and also Christmas card to the grandparents in the family.   I normally try to send out gift cards to my extended family, but didn't have much money to spare this year so the gift cards were kind of on the pathetic end of puny.  This, sadly, has been a continuing trend the last three years or so, but I figure one thing I can do to help make up for it is to make sure my step mom and my mom get current pictures of the kiddos.

I printed off the pictures of the kids myself.  I always buy the photo CD from the school picture taking people and print off the photos myself so I can control the size and number of photos I get.  Only downside is you only get one background to choose from, but I still think it's worth it for 15.00 per disc.

I printed off enough pictures for the grandparents and put them in different cards I had.  The ones I made for my mother and father-in-law are seen above.  I bought a bunch of  "print it yourself" cards at a yard sale one year for .50 (for packs of 50 cards) and these cards were one of the various styles.  They had a spot in the front to put your child's picture and I thought they were really pretty Christmas cards.

So, I printed off a picture of each kiddo and put them in the photo holder spot on the cards.  This way if my in-laws want to frame the photos they'll have a nice Christmas themed mat that they can just cut down to the size of their photo frame.

The cards that were going across country, however, I put those photos in regular nice and thick Christmas cards so that the at-home printed photos will survive the trip without getting beat up and scratched.  I figure my mom and step mom would appreciate the extra step for protection vs. hopefully getting really cute cards in the mail.

Total Cost of Gift:  I'm not really sure as I'm still working on the starter cartridges for my printer, but I'll estimate about .15 per card or so.

Total Time to Make Gift:  About an hour to get the sizes set right, get things cut out and envelopes addressed, etc.