I adore sending (and receiving!) real mail: thank you cards, holiday cards, postcards.  Real, handwritten notes are part of my love language.  We traditionally send cute photocards to our family for Valentine’s Day, and I look forward to putting them together every year.

There are tons of great places (Snapfish, Shutterfly) with predesigned cards so you can just drag and drop your photos and be done.  I’ve used those companies frequently in the past. This year I decided to try a different route: designing my own cards using PicMonkey.*

PicMonkey is straightforward and easy to use.  You can use their layouts or design your own, which is what I did.  I first converted all of the photos I wanted to include to black and white to give the card a more cohesive look and then I added a background and heart embellishments from the free options PicMonkey has available. I added a simple greeting and that was that.

The best part about this is that these print out as regular 4×6 photos (or a 5×7, if you prefer) instead of a much more expensive photocard.  I sent them off to our local one-hour place and had a bunch of them printed for about 10 cents each.  That’s an absolute steal!

I also made simple cards using this free cut file for my Silhouette and some kraft paper cards and envelopes.  We’ll write mushy love notes in the cards and send them off to our extended family to let them know how much we love them.

Simple, beautiful projects like this are my absolute favorite!

*I am in no way connected to any of these companies, I’m just sharing because I’ve used them successfully in the past.