This year I did some experimenting and was able to order our Christmas cards for just $30. I was motivated to do this when I went to my usual source for ordering them and the total for just 50 cards was going to be around $100 (and that was with a Black Friday 50% off sale!)

I’m sorry, but money is already tight during the holidays, and that was NOT going to fly with me this year. I didn’t want to eliminate the cards because I really do enjoy sending them. So, I came up with an alternative to create some inexpensive Christmas cards and I’m sharing that with you!

It’s possible that this idea is obvious or yesterday’s news, but it’s a first for me, and I felt pretty proud saving $70 this December. If just one person is able to do the same after reading this then I will be happy! Now, keep in mind prices may be different based on where you live. The point is – I hope this saves you money!

Do these look as amazing as a glitter-font-filled cardstock photo cards? Absolutely not. However, I think with a little more practice I may get these looking better and better every year.

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Search for Inspiration

The first thing I did was get inspired. I’m not the most creative when it comes to graphic design. So, I shopped around on Christmas card sites for some different ideas of what I would like my card to look like. I paid attention to colors, fonts and font sizes.

Create with Canva

Have you ever used Canva? It has so many neat things, but I’d say my skills are pretty beginner level. I love that you can even create for free with this website! I decided to make a Christmas card that was the size of a 4×6 photo.

There’s a search bar on the site, and that’s where I entered “4×6” and voila! A template was created for me that was just the right size.

Next, I added the picture I wanted along with the text I came up with. I’m a pretty simple gal when it comes to this stuff, so one picture and a “Merry Christmas!” was all I needed. However, you can really go nuts with this site and do all kinds of things!

Now that I know this strategy works, I may try to get more creative next year! Once I finished my design, I downloaded it to my computer as a .png file.

Photo Prints

I used Shutterfly to do this next step. They were having their Black Friday sale at the time which allowed me to get an even better deal. Instead of choosing their Christmas card option, I selected to order prints!

I was able to upload the .png file and ordered 60 of them! Get this – my total with tax and shipping was $22.51. That’s it! I got 10 more prints than the 50 Christmas cards they offered me at the beginning, and It was almost $80 less.

I was even able to use a code and get 2 sets of free return address labels, so the Black Friday sale was the way to go!

Envelopes

The next thing I needed was envelopes, so I went to the handy dandy Amazon for those. There were all kinds of options, but I ended up going with just a simple white 4×6 photo envelope. At the time I ordered these, they were $8.57 with tax.

Did you total that out? Sixty Christmas cards, 2 sets of return address labels, and 70 envelopes for $31.08! That’s a steal compared to the $100 I was about to pay. Yes, please, and thank you!

Quality

Now, the big question was – How were these going to turn out? Well, I’ll be completely honest with you. The quality looks like a photo. These are not fancy card stock with glitter foil borders. You have to be fine with simplicity, but they printed great and the text looked awesome!

I’ll also say I kept it very basic! Now that I know how this works, I may put a little more effort into it in the future, but overall I am happy with it for what I paid.

Am I late to the game on this? Is it an obvious strategy to save money? I don’t know! All I know is I’m glad I tried it out. I don’t remember Christmas cards being so expensive! So, this is a decent trick I’m happy to have up my sleeve.

My hope is that someone else reading this may be able to save some money and try it too! Merry Christmas to you all!