Holiday ideas

Today, I wanted to share my holiday ideas. I have to admit that I love Christmas and it is my favorite holiday. I have learned not to overwhelm myself as in years past; I have burned out trying to do all that I wanted to accomplish.

Well, this year, I have made my own Holiday cards. I started last January and most were finished by the end of that month. I bought a booklet of card paper. I then made square cards containing a square containing a square holiday package on the front. Three sides of the package are glued to the card with the top open so I can tuck in a special goody. I include tea, memory cards, or even small sewing crafts.

The leftover card stock was used to make the envelopes. I reversed the paper so the white side was out and the decorative side was on the inside. Then the post office would have a nice clean white side for processing. The inside of the envelope was festive for the recipient. I liked the effect.

This card has Sweet Dreams Tea and Ginseng Tea. I usually use peppermint tea, but you get the idea.

This card contains the micro SD card that seems to come with my phones and other small electronics. They just keep accumulating. I will load them with photos for friends. I will of course check postage on all the cards to make sure that I have enough stamps on them. I will also check to see if the card is thin enough to go through the regular mail sorting machines. I have 1GB and 2GB sizes of the micro SD cards.

Here is a regular SD card tucked into the package on the front of the card. I seem to collect those as well. I shall pass it along to a new home and keep it out of a landfill. I have several 2GB regular SD cards.

There are some people that I have taken many photos through the year. For them, I plan to open a free online photo album. I will include the photos and they can download and print off the ones that they want. It will save me on postage, printing, and they will have a digital copy to email or do whatever they would like with, whatever is convenient for them.

Also, I have some people who live far from me that I would like to send something to. Instead of spending money on postage to pay for shipping the gift, I plan to purchase a gift card for Napster, I-tunes, or Rhapsody. I will open the account with a nickname for them, add a password that I will send in a separate email, and then notify the recipient of their gift. They can shop and pick out their own music.

Those are just a few of my ideas of how I plan to show those who are special to me that I care without breaking the bank. I like that they can pick out their music because I may not know what they would like. For those that will have the on-line photos, they will always be able to print off what they would like to the size that they want. Otherwise, they can always email the photos to others.

If you have bought you cards, but like the idea of tucking in something special like tea or a memory card of photos, you can always make your own package or slot on the inside of the card. Even just adding a bit of tape can secure your extra item for the travel.

Just remember to erase your memory cards to make sure that you are only sending what you would like. Someone told me to format the memory cards more than once because some items can be recovered if the card is only formatted once. You don 't want to send anyone a copy of your last years taxes. Also, erase is not the same as formatting. Erasing leaves the items on the memory cards, but allows for other things to be recorded over the file. Formatting helps to eliminate the previous files.