Announcing Completely Custom Holiday Cards from Minted!

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Every year, I gleefully await the season when holiday cards start showing up on my doorstep. Since I don’t have a mantle, they get displayed proudly on the walls of my living room until the tape I used is no longer sticky, or until it becomes embarrassingly late in the year to have holiday cards up. And when it comes to the APW staff, there’s pretty much only one place we go to get our own holiday cards printed. And that’s Minted. As it stands, Minted is actually the only reason I send out holiday cards now. They have a huge selection of modern, stylish, affordable designs, in a range of themes (aka not just Christmas, and not just for families with kids), and they make the ordering process so easy with features like pre-printed envelopes, that not only did I order holiday cards last year, but I even sent them out on time. Proof positive:

Minted has always featured some of the most modern, innovative holiday card designs, created by their huge network of indie designers (including some APW sponsors!). But this year, they’ve upped the game in a big way. Now you can order totally custom, one-of-a-kind holiday cards featuring a photo of your home, a map of your neighborhood, or your kid’s artwork. That’s right. Through some form of dark magic, Minted is able to take a photo of your home, a line drawing your kid made in art class, or just a regular old link to Google maps and turn it into a totally unique holiday card. You can even get them in metallic.

Here’s how it works:

1. Upload a picture of your house or a scanned line drawing, or simply provide Minted with the address to your home, and one of their designers will transform your inquiry into a custom piece of art for your holiday cards.

2. Choose from one of the fifteen design styles that work with custom art.

3. Customize your card with a greeting, your name, and anything else you’d put on a normal holiday card.

4. Send those suckers out and wait for the complements to roll in.

Custom art cards will be available in both letterpress and foil. Because #duh. Right now, since APWers are some of the first to see these new options, just the foil cards are available on the Minted website. But Meg and I had a chance to see the full suite at Minted’s headquarters last month and trust me—the letterpress option is totally worth the wait. They’re like tiny art prints. (Actually, they are exactly like tiny versions of the custom art prints here, here, and here.) For tips on how to get the best outcome from your custom holiday cards (like avoiding blurry photos and overly complicated drawings), you can download Minted’s handy guide right here.

But if you don’t have any original artwork to share or a cool picture of your house, never fear (my Google map link looks like a big blob of dried grass and my house is boring, so, you know. I get you). Minted still has over six hundred holiday designs to choose from with a good number of them specifically geared toward recently marrieds. Just about every photo card can be customized with different color options, shape and size options, and holiday greeting (from Hanukah to Christmas to New Year’s and the general holiday greeting). So for those of you who just realized that (crap) you still need to pick yours out (raises hand), I’ve rounded up forty of my favorites. Now I just need to narrow down this list and pick my own damn card: