A digital Christmas card option that is easy and will last a lifetime

By mom4life | Category: It Worked 4 Me, The Journey of Motherhood

Last year I wrote a blog post on the topic of christmas cards that resonated with many of you.  I shared what I loved about the tradition of sharing cards as well as what I don’t love about it.  Then I shared that I decided to “send out a Christmas card, but it would be one that would be fun for me to make, fast for me to send and one our family could enjoy for years to come.”  I am continuing that tradition this year.  I started by making a digital card using Cocodot (which is now a free service).  You can see the digital card that I created here.  Then I linked that card to our family slideshow video (also shown below).

Creating the video this year took a little longer than expected.  Not because it was hard (because Animoto makes it super easy) but because I had a hard time narrowing down which images to use.  I wanted to focus on each child and share some of the main memories we wanted to preserve for 2011.  In the end I believe it is worth it however.  I had a lot of fun re-watching last years Christmas video and remembering some of the things I had already forgotten about last year.

Sending the card was even easier this year since last year I did the grunt work to gather up all the email addresses to send it to and designate a specific “Christmas Card folder in my email address book”.  Plus both Cocodot and Animoto have sharing features which allow me to share what I have created directly to facebook.

I have used Animoto to create several videos such as Quinten’s birth, Hunter’s 7th Birthday and some camping trips. Each of them have been not only fun and easy to make but have resulted in a final product that I could never create on my own.  Although you do pay for the service of creating full length video slideshows, they do allow you to create free 30 second video clips that can at the very least give you a feel for how the service works and if it would be something you would enjoy.  (Plus, I think that if you forgo traditional cards, the cost for a yearly subscription for Animoto could be easily justified due to the card and postage savings you will have.)  If you decide it is something you would like to try, you can click through to the Animoto site here and use this referral code “qkwstghl” to get $5 off your membership.  Then send me a link to the first video you create, I would love to see how it turns out:)!

Since not everyone is going to do something “untraditional” with their cards this year, I am planning on making this project tonight to display the Christmas cards we get in the mail. I have found lots of other fun Christmas Projects on Pinterest as well that I plan to work on this month.  (Not familiar with Pinterest? Here is my blog post about it).

For additional ideas on non-traditional cards, click here.  And if you would like some ideas on what to do with your cards once Christmas is over, click here for 5 great ideas.

Posted Wednesday, November 30, 2011