My first original Holiday Card.

I believe that all of the Holiday cards I sent out should have been received by now (except for the handful that I sent to the UK, France, and Australia), so I can now share with you my first original Holiday card!

I love Holiday card time, so I started looking for the perfect cards back in September or so.  I had a really hard time finding anything that struck me, and I felt that so many on the market were just super repetitive. Kate Spade had a couple that I liked, but when I realized that my Holiday Card list was over 100 people, the Kate Spade ones were just too pricey for such a large list.  Also, I have a ton of friends that don't celebrate Christmas, so it was really important for me to find cards with a universal message of merriment that would make all of my friends and family feel included.

So I started to think outside of the box.  

Lots of folks do a great family or couple photo for their card, but since I'm a single lady, doing a "family" photo wasn't really an option.  I began to sketch out my own, as I had an idea in my head of what I wanted my card to be about.  (Last year, I sent New York-themed holiday cards, so this year, I wanted to make note of the fact that I'm back on the West Coast and do a Los Angeles-themed card.)

The sketching wasn't coming along as quickly as I'd hoped, and I started to run out of time, so once again I thought about just buying cards, and I did the rounds at every stationery store I came across (which was a lot, considering my job involves selling to stationery stores), and still nothing spoke to me.

After a lot of brainstorming, a new image formed in my mind of what I wanted, and I set to work.  I decided to do a postcard format, I found an image online that I wanted to use, I enlisted a great photoshopper (if you ever need to hire someone for independent work, he's awesome and so fast), and within 36 hours, my project was designed, printed, and ready for me to start mailing out!  I couldn't believe how quickly it came to fruition once I set it in motion.

So without further ado, I present to you, my first original Holiday card project.  I'm proud of it - I hope you like it!

Front:

Back:

*the print looks blurry here, but obviously was high res in reality.

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