Beautiful Giraffa Designs (and a Confession)

Confession: I LOVE to get New Year's cards. (I even love them at the secular new year.) I love seeing the pictures of my friends and family and their kids and I really love those annual letters that some of my friends send. I am incredibly jealous of people who do that each year - and it gives me such joy to read them. (Am I the only person who loves these things?) I hang them up in our kitchen, I show the pictures to the kids, I get all giddy like a child when I get them in the mail. Maybe it's because the mail is otherwise so boring. But I think it's because I love love love the way that these cards and letters connect me to those I love. (Then again, I even get a kick out of seeing the cards of perfect strangers - one of my friends gets a ton of them each year in December and I see them displayed at her house...and I look at them all, even though I don't know any of the people! Okay, maybe this weird thing is for another blog post....)

Confession: I never send New Year's cards.

{{{Sigh}}} Usually, I just can't get it together. And I feel like once I get started....it's a big ol' snowball. Can't I just send my blog? :-)

When my pal LeighAnn posted on her Facebook profile that she was starting up a new business, I shared her link. She makes beautiful designs (and babies, by the way) and I loved the design she did for her daughter's birth announcement. (Yeah, I usually don't do those either. I'm such a slacker.)

And then she offered me a free design - no strings attached! (So there's the disclosure - I did get these gorgeously designed cards for free but that's all!) And so I decided to do it and this would be the first year that I ever send out New Year's cards. So if you get one from me, thank LeighAnn, okay? (If you don't get one, don't blame her, blame me. This is one of the reasons I don't usually send them - I'm so scared of forgetting someone!)

Isn't it beautiful!?

It was awesome to work with her - all I did was pick out my favorite, send her a picture, and she emailed me the proof. I love it. And then I uploaded it to VistaPrint, and thanks to a coupon from Ebates, the whole thing was quite inexpensive.

So it does happen that LeighAnn is in the same line of work that I am in...so this is a busy time of year. I'm not entirely sure that you could get a card in time for Rosh haShanah. But you could get it in time for Sukkot, I'm sure, and it's well worth it. (My advice, pay for quicker shipping from VistaPrint, though, that was the slow part for me.) I believe that Giraffa Designs is planning on offering designs for other simchas and occasions, so check back or check with her directly if you're looking for something right now.


But: I'm not making any promises that I'll actually send out cards every year.

After all, next year there will be even more of us.

(Oh yeah, that announcement hasn't actually been formally made here on the blog...

God willing, new little Sommer will arrive around Chanukah)