I love sending personalized Christmas cards with our family photo on them every year. What I don’t love? The price tag that can come with it!
Depending on the design and where you order your cards from, it can cost just as much to order the cards as it did to get the photos taken! We have a lot of people to send them to so I’m not kidding when I say that!
What is Canva and How Do You Use It?
Have you ever used Canva? If you haven’t, I would definitely recommend checking it out. In case you aren’t familiar, it is a website that you can use to design anything from social media images, to birthday cards, to posters, to flyers, to Christmas cards, to business cards, and so much more.
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You pick what type of document you would like to design and then you are able to design it with their easy to use drag and drop features.
Canva is totally free to use. You can sign up for an account and design documents using their free images and not have to pay a dime! If you choose an image that has a fee attached to it, you can pay the one-time fee for the use of that image. You can also upgrade to their Canva for Work and get access to even more images.
How To Use Canva To Design Your Own Christmas Cards
In Canva, you also have the option to upload your own images. This is how you are able to design your own photo Christmas cards. I used the 5X7 Portrait Invitation template to design ours. Once I selected the template, I uploaded the photos that we wanted to use, added a few festive borders to it, and added some text.
The nice thing with Canva is that you can get as festive -or not- as you would like. I very well could have left it at the picture and some text without the borders. Or I could have added more design by adding more Christmas images from their gallery.
We typically like to go with simple. And so this design was perfect for us.
How To Save Money By Using Canva To Design & Print Your Christmas Cards
You have the option to order your prints right from Canva. When you are designing your card, you will see a button at the top right of the screen that says ‘Order Prints’. Click there and you will be able to choose the type of paper you would like as well as the finish type (matte, gloss, or un-coated).
The prices are cheaper than many of the other photo sites that I checked. You can check a box and get envelopes included for an additional fee. Even with the envelopes, the price was cheaper than most other places I had checked.
The shipping is free which is a really nice perk! You can pay for express shipping if you need them faster!
Using Canva to Simplify Thank You Cards
We have started using Canva to simplify our Thank You cards as well. You can use their print services to print these as well or you can download the image to print it at home if you need the card sooner.
My daughter’s birthday is in December and by the time I am sending out our Christmas cards, I am also needing to send out her Thank You cards. So, I combined them! Well, I combined the shipping. I have a Christmas card and a Thank You card separate from each other but I mail them in the same envelope! This helps save on postage and has simplified things so much because I am not needing to hand write a thank you card to each person.
While I do like the added touch of hand written notes, this time of year is busy and I live by the “done is better than perfect” motto now more than ever!
If you start using Canva, let me know how you like it! I think you will discover there are tons of possibilities with it and it just may become your favorite way to design cards!
