Picking Holiday Cards

This is the first year that Lawson and I are getting photo cards for our holiday cards - with our cutie-pie to show off, how could we resist?  We took photos this past weekend on a beautiful hike (just before the temperatures dropped this week, good timing), so we thought we'd use those photos for our card.  I think the family photo turned out pretty well since we were relying on the kindness (and photography skills) of strangers, but it isn't the best photo of Esther ever, although it does reflect her inquisitive side (she really could not stop staring at the waterfalls).  Luckily we'll be able to include some additional cute photos of her on the back of the card.  Also, I kind of love that everyone in our family is wearing something I knitted in the photo.

I have always admired the cards at TinyPrints, both ogling their options online and seeing the nice baby announcements and holiday cards that we've gotten from friends.  I'm super excited to be partnering with them for our cards this year and I had fun playing around on the site mocking up some cards.  There are tons of cute options, but I narrowed our choices down to this selection.  What do you think?

This joyful holly card is my favorite, I think - love the square shape and the cute motifs.  Plus, pure joy pretty much captures our sentiment this year I think.  They have an option for a cute patterned back, but since we'll be putting photos on the back I think it looks less cluttered with the solid red background.

I also love this cozy feeling card - another square option.  The back would look pretty much the same as the last one except with a solid blue (or there's a red or green option for the card and back, too).

I think this card (delightfully dotted) may be more traditional than we are going for but the dots are fun!  Plus you can see more of the waterfall in the photo.  Speaking of which, I really appreciated how easy it was to zoom/crop your photos on the TinyPrints site - it makes it really easy to customize each card, particularly when you are trying different photo orientations and also want to customize what looks best with each card.

I actually think the patterned background on this one looks good with the photos!

Speaking of playing around with photo placement to see what looks best with the card... I was bummed out that our photo just really didn't work well with this joyous heart card.  This card was one of my favorites but the waterfall is definitely not compatible with the name placement.  I'd be more disappointed if I didn't like the other options so much, though.

So what do you think?  Which card is your favorite, and what are you doing for your cards this year?

You may have seen that TinyPrints has been having some great black friday week deals - if you aren't going to get your cards picked out this week, though, you can still get 20% off and free shipping using the promo code TPH85Z - the code expires 1/31/14, so there's still plenty of time to get your cards for the holidays.  Just paste the code in the "promo code" box at checkout and you're good to go!

Disclosure: I am excited to be partnering with TinyPrints on this post and they will be providing me with some of our cards.  All opinions expressed are my own.