Stock Up on Stocking Fillers

Can you believe it’s now only 80 days until Christmas?

As part of my commitment to the Countdown to Christmas Challenge, I’d like to speak about Christmas Stockings today.

Stockings are an important part of many families’ Christmas traditions, and yet they are easy to forget about until the last minute.

If you have children, particularly young ones, you certainly have to make sure you have lots of little goodies to go into their Christmas stocking.  On Christmas morning, my twin daughters always tend to head for their Christmas Stockings before opening their main big presents!

Ideal stocking fillers for babies and toddlers:
• Small stuffed animals (please ensure they are suitable for children under 3 years old.)
• Rattles
• Board books
• Puzzles
• Clothes – e.g. bibs, hats, mittens, socks

Ideal stocking fillers for pre-schoolers:
• Books
• Puzzles
• Play-do
• Crayons or colouring pencils
• Stickers
• Jewellery
• Hair accessories
• Toy cars
• Clothes – socks, gloves, hats, scarves
• Dolls

Ideal stocking fillers for kids aged 5 to 12:
• Books
• Hair accessories
• Jewellery
• Pens & pencils
• Secret Diaries
• Keyrings
• Pencil cases
• Badges

Ideal stocking fillers for teens:
• USB memory sticks
• Books
• CDs
• DVDs
• Cosmetics
• Wrist watches

For more ideas on what to put in your Christmas stockings, check out List Mama’s List of Helpful Stocking Stuffer Ideas post.

For a chance to win 1 of 5 Holiday ePlanners from ListPlanIt please visit the 100 Days to Christmas blog before October 11 at 6 pm EST to enter.

Stock Up on Stocking Stuffers

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How to start writing your Christmas Card List

It may still only be September, but it’s a good time to start thinking about your Christmas cards. Come November or December, you’ll be far too busy to think about Christmas cards.

The first part of your Christmas Card preparations is writing your Christmas Card List.

Dig out last year’s Christmas Card List (if you have one!) as a starter for this year’s list. Alternatively, if you have saved the cards you received last year, can use these as a prompt to start your list. You can print out a Cards to Send list from ListPlanIt.com or create your own, and begin to list everyone to whom you think you might like to send a card. You can always pare down the list later, if it is too overwhelming. This way you have a general idea how many cards you need to buy/make.

Ensure that you have up-to-date contact details for everyone on your Christmas Card List. Ask around friends and family to help you fill in any blanks.

Decide which type of cards you would like to send (e.g. various shop-bought packs, charity cards, bumper multipacks, individual shop-bought cards, handmade cards, eCards, personalised greetings cards. Be sure to jot down your ideas and findings in your Christmas planner. Check out List Mama, Jennifer Tankersly’s List of Possible Christmas Card Options.
For the past couple of years I have sent my friends, family and neighbours, personalised greetings cards, using an online greetings card company. I use photos of my daughters with Santa Claus. The cards are created online, using my own photos, my own handwriting and my signature. They are then printed and sent direct to my recipients at the touch of a button, for less than I would pay in the shops. You can find out more here.

Visit the 100 Days to Christmas blog for more inspiration and motivation on preparing for Christmas 2009. You can also participate in prize draws to win some fabulous goodies.

Today is the First Day of Autumn

Did you know that today is officially the first day of Autumn?  Those of you from Scotland might, like me, have believed that Autumn started a couple of weeks ago.  There’s been a chill in the air, the mornings and evenings have been darker and leaves have already started to go brown on the trees.

As I write this, the wind is howling outside and there are spits of rain on the window pane, and I feel a pang of sadness for another Summer’s end.  What does Autumn (or Fall) mean to you?  Do you like or loathe this season?

There’s a lot about Autumn that I dislike:

• Shorter Days – I really don’t like the dark mornings, and I find it increasingly difficult to get out of bed at this time of year.  I also dislike the fact that it is starting to get dark as soon as I get home from the office.  It depresses me to think that in a month or so it will actually be dark before I leave the office!
• The Fall in Temperature – I hate the fact that my office is now pretty cold and I have to wear an extra layer of clothing.  In a month or so I’ll have to wear a couple of extra layers to work!  (This is the downside to working in a beautiful old building.)
• Holiday Overkill – Have you noticed that the supermarkets have been selling Halloween goodies for the past couple of weeks, even though it is more than a month until the 31st October?  Even worse, some shops have started stocking Christmas goodies!  I noticed boxes of mince pies on sale in one supermarket last week, with Use By dates in November!!  Unbelievable.
• Having to Budget for Christmas – I dread the thought of how much money Christmas is going to cost this year!

Having said all that, there are many aspects of Autumn that I truly love:

• Autumnal Shades – I love the beautiful Autumnal shades of the trees at this time of year.  I am lucky enough to live at the edge of a small Stirlingshire town, with lots of beautiful trees behind my house.  The country path between my home and office is beautiful at this time of year, with the trees on either side providing a golden tunnel effect.
• Autumn Games - My daughters and I enjoy playing games as we walk to school.  Jumping on freshly fallen crunchy leaves is a favourite game of ours.  The crunchier the leaf the better!
• Halloween – My daughters are looking forward to Halloween again this year!  We will decorate the house and garden, making some Halloween decorations ourselves.  We will also make some tasty Halloween treats together. 

What about you?  What do you like or dislike about Autumn? 

 

If you would like to get creative and make your own personalised Halloween greeting card, then click here for a demonstration on a fantastic online system.

Six Simple Steps for holiday card sending – Step 1

Hi everyone!

STEP 1: Make Sure Your Personalized Font and Signatures Are Ready!

Visit my Send Out Cards site to see how easy it is to send a beautiful personlised card, straight from your PC to your recipient’s door.

Holiday cards should be fun, heartwarming, and sending them out with your own handwriting and signature will make your cards stand out amongst the many holiday cards that are going out.

Join Send Out Cards today and purchase a Handwriting Font Package (included FREE in some SOC packages). 

Once purchased, download the font form, use a color printer to print the form (the boxes must be red), fill it out, and mail it to the address in the instructions section of the form. It takes 7 to 10 business days to have the font and signatures available on your account, so get this to us soon! Visit the FAQ page on my SOC site if you have additional questions.

Happy card sending,

If you can’t afford expensive gifts on The List, make your own!

Hi everyone!

 

This month is an eventful one for me and my family!  We have a lot of events to go to and dates to remember – Weddings, Christenings, bridesmaid (and flower girl) dress shopping, Back-to-Nursery, Captain Tortue party, etc.

 

Yesterday, I colleague at my office was finishing up for her wedding.  Rosie is getting married on Thursday 14^th August at Guthrie Castle, Angus, Scotland to her childhood sweetheart, David.  Myself and a couple of my colleagues stayed behind on Thursday night to decorate the office with balloons, banners and other “Hen Party” paraphernalia.  I had printed off a copy of The Good Wife’s Guide and a few other marriage-type jokes for her amusement.  She was pleasantly surprised when she arrived at the office (a bit dishevelled, having slept in for her last day!).

 

Five of us went out for a curry at lunch time and Rosie, being the good sport that she is, even wore her pink veil and headdress and her “Bride To Be” Rosette, as we took the five minute walk from our office to the restaurant.

 

Rosie hankers after her dream gadget – a robotic hoover – and, after some ‘arm-twisting’ had managed to persuade David to let her add it to the Wedding Gift List.  Unfortunately, at £199.00, it was out of the price range of our little department, so we clubbed together to buy the couple another gift.  However, we have a very talented guy in our office, James, who put his artistic skills to good use and constructed a make-shift hoover with modelling clay, a sandwich bag and a bendy straw.  This tiny hoover was then attached to a little clockwork snail (provided by Rosie’s boss, Simon) by way of a little harness.  The result was a very endearing robohoover with a twist.  It was hilarious!  It certainly appealed to Rosie’s sense of humour!  We estimate she’d be celebrating her Golden Wedding by the time the “Hoover” had even completed one small room!

 

Unfortunately,I forgot to take my camera to work, but my colleagues took some snaps, so…..  watch this space!

 

 

Hello world!

Hello and welcome to my brand new Greeting Card Guru blog.

My name is Annette Kerr and I work in direct sales for three very different companies.  One of these companies is Send Out Cards, which sells beautiful personlised greetings cards for personal or business use.

I use these fantastic cards to keep in touch with with family, friends, business associates and customers.  I create them on my computer, using my own photographs, handwriting and signature.  Send Out Cards then print the cards and post them to the recipients, all for much less than I’d pay for a card in the shops.  It’s a fantastic system!

I’ve set up this blog as a way of keeping my customers and distributors informed of special events and holidays that are coming up and suggesting how they might celebrate these events.

I’ll also be sharing my experiences in creating my cards (e.g. pictures used, verses used, etc..)  Furthermore, I’ll be sharing useful resources with you (e.g. links to sites where you can download royalty-free photos to use for your cards, sites to buy gifts, etc).

I plan to update this blog once per week, and will share key dates for the weeks and months to come, as well as funny and thought-provoking quotes.

If you would like a little peek at my Send Out Cards site you can view it here.

Thanks for visiting!

Annette