I feel like there’s a point in your life where you start sending holiday cards out from your own little family (furry kids or human kids included) and that’s how you really know you are an adult. We started doing cards with Todd and I and our cats 2-3 years before we had our daughter Lola, so now it feels even more special to have her be a part of our Christmas photo now. Last year, I got the photo done but the holiday season swallowed up my time before I got a chance to actually order them. So I ended up texting the photo out to friends, and it’s juuuust not as fun as getting a card in the mail. This year, I’m going to print them at home so I know they’ll look good. I can print exactly how many I need, and do it all from the comfort of my home. So you can join in on the fun, as we partnered with Canon USA and made a holiday card template so those of you with Photoshop can pop in your own photo and print your family cards at home too!
I used my Canon PIXMA TS9521C printer to print my cards at home and I love that I can print multiple sizes of pages with this printer, including a 12×12 size! I used 5×7 paper and adjusted the settings as there’s lots of flexibility.
Photoshop Template Instructions:
Download our holiday card templates, select which family photo you’d like to use for your card, and follow these instructions below!
1. Open both the psd card template file and your holiday photo file in Photoshop.
2. Drag (or copy and paste) your holiday photo into the card template psd file.
3. Open your layers palette so you see the layers on the right as displayed in the above photo.
4. In the layers palette, drag the “place image here” layer mask (black background with a white box) onto your holiday photo layer.
5. Delete the gray “place image here” layer.
6. If you want to resize your image in the cropped frame, go to the layers palette. Click the link icon between the photo and the layer mask to unlink them. Click on your image in the layers palette. Then, choose the menu items Edit>Transform>Scale. Resize your photo until you are happy with it and then relink the image and the layer mask by clicking the spot where the link originally was between the photo and layer mask.
7. Don’t forget to save your file and print when ready!
Aren’t those designs so sweet!? You can either print all your cards with one design or print several to mix up the variety you send out to family and friends. I like to do a fun stamp or sparkly sticker on a pretty envelope to make the outside look a little special as well. This year, I’m totally going to be ahead of the game by printing my cards early at home and that means more time for sitting around with hot chocolate once the holidays roll around … what’s not to love? xo. Laura
P.S. If you love card making, try using some of Elsie’s favorite Paper Collage Supplies!
This site makes it easy to find and customize a stylish template. The prints are consistently the best we’ve seen. And a free design review just might save you from sending an embarrassing mistake to your nearest and dearest.
In our busy, digital world, a tangible holiday card may provide more meaning than ever before, and Simply to Impress is the best service for creating and sharing holiday cheer.
If you need last-minute cards, this is the best option for getting decent (but not great) prints in less than 24 hours.
This service delivered cute holiday cards that were comparable to cards from our top pick. It provides double-sided printing and has a terrific app, if you want to create a holiday card directly from your phone.
This service has fewer options than top competitors, and the site is harder to use. But no other service we tested offered such high-quality cards for such a low price.
With Simply to Impress, it was easier to create a beautiful, custom holiday photo card than with the other services we tried. This company offers an exceptionally wide selection of designs, with filters that efficiently narrow the results, so you won’t spend ages scrolling. Once you’ve found the right one, you can customize it with simple editing tools and choose from ample paper, finish, and trim options. Turnaround is brisk, and there are various options for shipping speed. And if you’d prefer, the service can do the work of addressing and mailing your cards (at extra cost).
If you’re on a tight budget, the holiday photo cards from Nations Photo Lab look nearly as good as those from Simply to Impress. The site offers fewer customization choices and photo-upload methods, and it has scant photo-editing tools. Also, Nations Photo Lab has neither an addressing service nor a card-mailing service. But the company’s per-card prices were about 70¢ less than those of our top pick. And shipping is free on orders of $79 or more, so this one is an especially good value if you’re ordering a significant number of cards.
This service delivered cute holiday cards that were comparable to cards from our top pick. It provides double-sided printing and has a terrific app, if you want to create a holiday card directly from your phone.
Mixbook
If you don’t need your holiday cards shipped out for you, as Simply to Impress will do, you may find a better deal through Mixbook. This service offers free double-sided printing and an app, unlike our top pick. It also stocks some creative card sizes and has a minimum-order option as low as one. The quality of Mixbook’s cards is on a par with the ones we got from our top pick. But we thought the plethora of design choices and being able to have your cards mailed for you gave Simply to Impress an edge.
If time isn’t of the essence, go with one of our other picks. But if the holidays sneak up on you, or you’re stuck with a last-minute assignment from your boss, Staples provides the best mix of quality templates, ease of use, and quick turnaround at a reasonable price. Our Staples cards looked almost as good as those from Simply to Impress, with comparable sharpness and color fidelity (albeit slightly darker and on slightly flimsier paper). These cards are not the best, but they’re definitely good enough for display on a fridge.