Territan (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} territan) wrote,@ 2007-09-16 22:26:00 |
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| Current location: | home |
| Current mood: | scheming |
| Entry tags: | holiday |
Planning Ahead
Check the calendar lately? You should. There's only 100 shopping days until Christmas!
Yes, you read that right. It's over three months until the holiday that has families tearing their hair out trying to pick that one perfect gift (as long as it's available, on sale, fun to share with the giver, etc.), and I'm ahead of the game for once, by virtue of having already started my shopping. Yes. I'm gloating. I've actually started my Christmas shopping before the stores could put out their Thanksgiving decorations. October may have been too late.
Really, it started as little more than an impulse purchase on Amazon as I was ordering some things for myself. One of the recommendations that came up for me didn't exactly tickle my fancy, but then I thought, "Not for me, no, but my mother would love this." [insert light bulb here] I already owe her some music sofware and hardware for finally going through with getting her new computer, but this ought to catch her by surprise.
There was one other thing that got me thinking about the holiday. And I mean looking forward to it in a wary, how-am-I-gonna-wrestle-it-to-the-ground kind of way, not a oh-joy-it's-coming-it's-coming kind of way. It was something I put on my calendar last January. Call it a New Years Resolution, if you will: I decided long ago that I wanted to design and send out my own Christmas card.
And what a logistical nightmare that's going to be.
The requirements for sending out your own greeting card are:
- A greeting card design
- Paper on which to print your greeting card design
- A list of people's addresses to which cards get sent.
And so far, I'm ...zero for three there.
Mind you I have some ideas for a greeting card design, but I have yet to commit anything to paper/Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign/fin
The paper on which to print your greeting card is no problem if you're not discerning. If you're content printing your résumé on 20 lb. white copy paper, then you're sitting pretty.
Of course I have a problem. From an 8.5"x11" sheet of paper, you'll get two sizes of greeting card: 4.25"x5.5" or 5.5"x8.5". <fauxbritish>Well that's just naff, i'nt it? I mean, one of 'em's too small. It'll get lost among all yer others an' they'll forget you even sent a card. An' the other's too big. It'll dwarf the rest of 'em, an' that's bad 'cos you'll make everyone think you're puttin' on airs.</fauxbritish>
(I have no idea where that came from.)
And it turns out that while it's a great idea to have blank medium-weight paper to print proper-sized greeting cards on, not many people sell that size paper, because its use is so specific. But I may have found a company that sells 7"x10". Folds down to 5"x7" and judging by the way they talk up the paper in printer's jargon (which I recognize—make of that what you will), they know their stuff. So I'm probably going to order from them.
As for the addresses of my friends, well, good thing I'm a social cripple these days. That makes that task so much easier.
