Making Your Own Family Christmas Card

It is one thing to go to the store and buy an impersonal Christmas card however no matter how expensive or heartfelt it is this is exactly the kind of card that quickly ends up in the garbage bin. This is because simply buying a greeting card in a store does not seem very sincere or intimate to others. A photo Christmas card however conveys the message that you have spent some money and gone to a little more effort to impress the person that is receiving your holiday greeting.

Thanks to advances in digital photography and computer photography sending a family photo is no longer a big deal. Digital cameras allow you to take the photograph immediately and retake any photographs that don't turn out well. Real film is rarely used anymore to create a photo card so they are quite cheap to have created professionally or to create yourself. Making your own family photo christmas card is especially a snap thanks to simple design programs (both online and that you can buy) that allow you to attach a photo to your own design and print it right off of your computer. That is yet another thing that technology has saved us all from recently – the time, anxiety and expense of waiting for ages for a printed photo christmas card set to come back from the printer's.

There is no right way to create a christmas photo for your card. In this day and age the more creative and more casual the card is, the more fashionable it is. The design of the photo Christmas card has come a long way since the family had to line up all in arrow dressed in their Sunday best. Nowadays you are more likely to see a photo Christmas card where the whole family is dressed up as Santa, or performing an activity that has little to do with Christmas such as waterskiing. In fact nowadays, the less the card has to do with the Christian form of holiday greeting, the more politically correct it is. The traditional sight of snow and Santa and references to the Christ Child may be left out of the card's message altogether.

It is quite easy to create your own cards. Many people creating do-it-yourself photo Christmas cards get inspiration from scrapbooking ideas or simply by looking around on the Internet and graphics and different fonts. The idea is to keep the project as simple as possible. Most beginning designers make the mistake of biting off more than they can chew and then abandon their do-it-yourself photo Christmas card when it proves to be too difficult to complete.

If designing your own card is beyond you, then you can always farm out the creation of your photo Christmas card to a professional who can make sure it is designed and printed properly for you.

Cheap Travel Tips

Thinking of taking a trip for the holiday season? There are some simple ways to keep your Travel costs that can have your whole family on the road for very little more than what you would pay to just live every day. Some of the deals that you can find online nowadays are quite amazing especially if they happen to be offered by the big attractions like Niagara Falls, Disney World or similar. Very often you can find the hotels and motels that include enter ace to the attractions as part of the cost.

For instance, did you know that all of those credit cards in your wallet more than likely come with points of some sort that you can put towards Travel by air or towards expenses such as gasoline? Many people simply use their credit cards without really checking out what perks they might have to offer when it comes to Travel. If you can't find information about this online then simply call the credit card company and ask what kind of perks you are entitled to as a traveler. Some people can even get an entire trip paid for using this method.

Another good thing to do is check out online holiday auction sites. These are budget airline seats that have been bought in batches and are available for a very cheap rate. You can also get food and accommodation packages that go with these flights sometimes that are absurdly cheap.

It is also a good idea to go to vacation sites or the city sites of the places you are thinking of visiting and just simply look for free coupons. You can get coupon discounts for everything from hotels to food and entertainment. This is a good way to afford staying in a five star hotel or to eat in a fancy restaurant when you thought you could only afford to stay in a three star hotel or eat at MacDonald's. It is absolutely amazing how much money you can save downloading these types of coupons and using them to help plan where you will stay and eat during your trip.

You can also surf around online and find really great deals for families. There are a lot of vacation destinations online that cater specifically to that!
Another tip is to try and go somewhere where you are on the top side of the exchange rate. Exchange rates can be very unpredictable. If you play your cards right you can end up making extra money while you Travel!