Review and Giveaway: Shutterfly Holiday Cards!

My Pretend Lawyer Made Me Write This: This is not a sponsored post.  Shutterfly gave me 50 free holiday cards for review and additionally, 3 promotional codes for 25 free cards to give away to my readers.  However, I did purchase additional prints with my own money to further test and review the entire process since I am a new Shutterfly user (the auditor in me insisted on completing a "real" payment process.)  All opinions expressed are my own.

Updated 11/16/11
The Winners!
Leah, Jendo89 and AliMomof3!  Congratulations!  I've sent your promo codes for 25 free 5x7 photo cards.  Let me know if you have questions or issues on checkout.

*****
A few months ago, the service I used for printing photos and my holiday cards closed shop.  Forever.  I had used this service for a long, LONG time and when I got the news they were closing shop, I did not relish the thought of finding a new site to use for my holiday cards.

Here's the thing -- I am pretty serious about Christmas cards.  I love, LOVE doing Christmas cards, even way back in the day when I would just grab a box of cards at Target...... back in the day before photo cards were the "cool thing" to do.  Even now, with photo cards, I still look forward to the process of sitting down with a cup of a hot tea (or wine, if it's a Friday.  Ahem.), grabbing a fresh Sharpie, settling down into my chair and getting to the task of hand-addressing each envelope.  Additionally, I always keep a stack of holiday stationary nearby for jotting quick notes to those recipients that I may not have seen in awhile.  I always try to order my cards around Thanksgiving so that would leave me a few weeks to get the cards out in time.

My old service shutting down left me in a lurch until Shutterfly sent me a request to review their Holiday Cards.  Which I had to carefully consider and ponder, of course.

For all of 2 seconds.

When I went to check out the selection of cards, I was little overwhelmed at first.  For example, I went to look at their Christmas Cards and I was greeted with 928 choices.  Gulp. Fortunately, I could narrow those down by size, number of photos per card, color schemes, format (flat vs. folded), themes (i.e. "Religious") and categories (i.e. "Whimsy" or "Merry & Bright").  And that helped.  A bit.  So.... I clicked around some more in their other lines.

The first that caught my eye was the My Favorite Things card in their Holiday Story Cards line:

However, I fear that I am too sarcastic for something like that and I would prefer my grandmothers not leave coal in my stocking.  After all, a few of my favorite things include proper male aim at the toilet, an 8pm Sharp bedtime (for the kids), a slightly warm bottle of Boulevard Amber Ale and a freshly recorded episode of Breaking Bad.  All of which are inexplicably related. Indeed.

I also considered this card from the Holiday Cards line:

I liked this card because it reminded me of Kerala - the tropical area of India from where my husband is from.  He did not grow up with pine trees like I did - instead, he grew up with coconut trees.

I eventually decided on two other designs and made cards with each design (because seriously, that is how easy it was that I could make TWO cards in no time flat.)  I'm waiting for my husband to approve one or the other.  So, which one did I decide on??   It's supposed to be a surprise, right?  Right.

In the meantime, I did order and pay for prints from Shutterfly because I wanted to see their ordering process from end-to-end (yes, I am a former auditor.  Why do you ask??)

Overall, what did I like about my experience with Shutterfly?
1. It was very, very easy to download/organize albums and the download speeds were quite good. The user experience was pretty much exactly what I would expect from an online photo service.  No surprises! Also, I appreciate that my photos are hanging out there, just waiting to be turned into a cool photo gift or photo book.

2. I liked that on the prints I ordered (Disclosure: and paid for with my own money), I could designate text to be printed on the back.  I don't remember that being an option from my previous service and I appreciated that Shutterfly offered it.

3. I noticed for the Christmas cards they have two really cool options.  One of them includes pre-addressing the envelopes for you (I believe the pricing was 25 cents per card) and another option included even directly sending some of the cards (or if you choose, all of the cards).  Those aren't options that I want or need right now, but they are certainly something to consider if you are a small business owner or someone with a really busy schedule.  

Giveaway Time!
Shutterfly has given me promotional codes for 25 free holiday cards to give away to THREE readers (excludes shipping and taxes, valid only in the US).  I am opening up anonymous commenting for this and the rules for this giveaway are simple:

Leave a comment on this post by Midnight, CDT Friday, November 4th, 2011 and I will choose three winners using Random.org.  That's it! Please include an email address if you're not a regular commenter so that I may contact you if you win.


And more!
Shutterfly would also like to reach out to other bloggers!  Are you a blogger? Want a chance at 25 free cards this holiday season? Register here.