Ghosts of Christmas (cards) past....

I have declared THIS weekend THE weekend to work on the Semi-Homemade Christmas card. (This way, I have a few wks for it to be on my radar before I hit panic mode.... although I hope that this year I go against my normal, last-second nature... as I'm trying to plan Big Sister's Semi-Homemade, as-yet-unthemed, birthday party!)

And.... I've got a few ideas for our card this year, but I thought I'd look back at where we've been.... to get clarity on where we're going. In the sense of Christmas cards, anyway....

2008
And so, last year..... we had Kristie running crazy, as we did our 4th(?!) session with her in about that many months. The Texas fall scenery was magical, our first session as a family of 4 went pretty well... and if someone would have only told me to wear darker! lipstick, it would have been perfect. ;)
The look: simple, modern
The colors: chocolate brown, woodland green



I had really debated on doing a coral/turquoise card last year.... so in order to incorporate it into our holidays, I used it as our gift tags. (I work these up in photoshop and print these at the drug store as wallets. It's cheap, customized, and totally semi-homemade.) Note that last year, I was a very tired, full-time working, breastfeeding, new mother of 2... who didn't have time to take pictures specifically intended for gift tags... so I went with what I had!

2007
This was back in our pre-Kristie days.... what I really can't believe is the difference in Big Sis from one year to the next. Like she went from a baby to a big girl in a year!

The look: damask, scrolls, sophisticated

The colors: black, white, red

2007 was the first year it occured to me that I could make my own gift tags. I kept it simple and used the same picture and feel of our Christmas cards....

2006

Ahhh, the first year I ever designed our own cards. Mr. Fix-It had just gotten me photoshop (I think it was an early Christmas present), and I just knew there was so way I'd have the time or patience to play around with it. Much less end up with something presentable. I was quite proud of this at that time! (Too bad I didn't stick a bow in that baby girl's hair! That was Big Sis's first Christmas and she was just a few days shy of her first birthday.)

The look: whimsical, winter wonderland (novice?!)

The colors: navy blue, crimson

So, what fun ideas do you guys have for your holiday cards this year? Share what you've done or what you plan on doing!

One idea in my head involves a family picture on the front of our card and a picture of the kids sitting at our feet on the back. A few barriers:

The card would need to be printed front AND back. Does anyone know of a (reasonably priced!!) site that offers this? I thought I did, but....

I'm in love with some of the pics of Big Sis from this same photo shoot and I'm not sure I want to tie up all our pics in our card!

I can't wait to see all the creative holiday cards, arriving in my mailbox - it's almost that time!