My hands are cramped from scrawling the names and addresses of loved ones across our Christmas post cards – but I’m done! As the cards find their way into the hands of family and friends amid the hustle and bustle of the holiday postal service, I cross another goal off my 25×25 goals: Start a Christmas card tradition!

We started with a cute photo of Torbin in a sweater, surrounded by white Christmas lights that Adam took last year. I set the photo to grayscale and got to work in MS Paint to try to work a little graphic design magic. I know I should upgrade to basically anything but Paint, but it’s the bad boyfriend of photo editing programs that I just cannot quit. We know each other so well, and he’s got all these annoying little flaws that drive me to the brink time and time again, but in the end – we work it out.

Anyway.

I drafted a few different concepts for our card and finally settled on two versions.

I loved the above version, but when I took the files to Staples to print, it just would not work. I think the detailing (the words and the faux-ribbon) were too close to the edge of the photo, so when the associate tried to print, they just got cut off no matter what we tried.

We ended up going with my other favorite design, below:

I love the pop of bright green on the black and white. And that marker effect on the heart? Oh MS Paint, I love your recent upgrades.

We went the postcard route to save money and paper. We did the same thing for our Save the Dates and it was so easy. Just print your photo of heavy duty matte card stock, 4×6 or 3×5 inch prints both work. Then cut the pictures out, flip them over and draw a line down the center of the back of the card, add a postcard stamp and address the card as you would any other postcard.

It took me about an hour in Paint to come up with a few designs and then a couple hours to cut, address, and stamp my cards. For 24 cards, I paid $6 for printing (at Staples) and $8 in postage. That makes the cost per card roughly $0.58 – a bargain for an adorable, completely customizable Christmas card.