“Love goes toward love. “

Valentine’s day means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Traditionally it is a romantic holiday, for lovers only, but I challenge that train of thought. Love is not just for the romantically involved. To me Valentine’s Day is another day to remind me to show those I love that I love them in a special way.

 I love my girls, my parents, grandparents, my brother and sister-in-laws, my nephews and nieces, my friends as well as my Hubby.  So why just leave Valentine’s Day for dates and school parties?  Those of you who know me, know that I love celebrating the little moments. Valentines Day presents itself the perfect opportunity to tell my girls that I love them with a cute little something (this year, heart necklaces).   I also like to do little things for my friends and family. Candy, cards anything that spreads the love.  Little love notes to the kids at breakfast or in their lunch boxes are great ways to celebrate Valentines day. A phone call with a Happy Valentine’s Day message will always be welcome to any loved one.

Of  course I think that Valentine’s Day is a bit commercial and that people spend a lot of money when they don’t necessarily need to. I do, however, refuse to become pessimistic about the holiday.  So I  celebrate Valentine’s Day. I make sure that one more time my loved ones hear those three magic words.

Now that I have told you what Valentine’s Day means to me it is your turn! Simply comment on this post about what Valentine’s Day means to you and I will randomly draw a number and give away 25 FREE Shutterfly cards just in time for Valentine’s Day! You all know how I love Shutterfly. They make great, quality products that are really fun! Check out their V-Day cards here.

One Valentine’s Day I gave the girls luggage tags from Shutterfly with their pictures on them! They loved it and still use them years later! Check out photo gifts from Shutterfly here.  Also look at their selection of thank you cards. It is always nice to have Thank You cards handy when you  need them.

Giveaway Rules:  Leave one comment answering the following “What Valentine’s Day means to me…” by February 5th Midnight. I will use Random.org to pick the winner.  Winner has 24 hours to get back to me, after that I will pick another winner.

Extra Entry: Follow me on Twitter @FourAgainstTwo and leave a comment saying you did and your Twitter handle.

Good luck!

Disclosure:  Shutterfly is giving me 25 free cards to keep and 25 free cards to give to one lucky reader in exchange for my post about what Valentines Day means to me and sharing the Shutterfly links posted above. I, of course, love my Shutterfly and was happy to write this!

Clipart Credit

Dear Santa Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly.com for elegant Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

I just love my Shutterfly!

(Disclosure:  Shutterfly is offering gift certificates for bloggers who share cards. I do not know if I will recieve one, but I love this card and it is worth a shot!)

Last year I tried something new and sent out really cute E-cards out for Christmas.   That did not give me the same old fuzzy, warm feelings that Christmas cards do.  Most of us still like to send good, old fashioned cards during the holidays .  Old fashioned with a modern feel.   So this year I’m doing actual Christmas cards again.

I, of course, will get my cards at Shutterfly, my favorite photo site.  I get my photo books and photo gifts there as well as use the share sites for my Girl Scout troops.

Shutterfly has a lot of   Christmas and Holiday cards, but it is not overwhelming because of the easy way to search. If you already know what picture(s) you want to use you can select type of card, size of card and how many pictures you have.  Of course they have the holiday categories as well to narrow down your tastes.  Humorous, fun, trendy, religious, Hanukkah are just a few that come to mind.  They also have invitations that rock.  Prices start at $0.40 a card!

The wide selection makes it easy to find the cards that meet your families special needs.  My dream is to have all the kids matching standing in front of the Christmas Tree or a snowman outside with wide smiles and happiness radiating from them.  This doesn’t happen in my life though. My girls are happy, will smile (just not together) and are great kids.  They don’t do family pictures though. Welcome to my world of pre-teens….ahhhhh. Yes, eight, ten and eleven are pre-teen if you hadn’t realized. Elle is six of course, but she is normally in rain boots with a Star Wars costume on!  So candid moments are what I use in my Christmas cards!

So many great cards!

Here are a two cards I am thinking of using this year from Shutterfly:

I love how this card lets you give an update on the kiddos, without needing a lot of material!

This card holds ten pictures and with four kids I have lots of pictures to share.

Another product Shutterfly has that I like to use are the Gift Tags.

I cannot wait to see every-one’s Christmas, Holiday and New Years cards this year!

Money saving tip:  Another way I save money with Shutterfly is buying through ShopatHome.com.  They are currently giving 10%cash back with Shutterfly orders.)

(Disclosure:  Shutterfly has offered free cards in exchange for writing a post about their products.  As I frequently talk about Shutterfly and buy things from them, you can bet that my review of their products is truthful!  Shopathome.com link is a tell a friend link.)

Art/Photo credit  Shutterfly logo from Shutterfly.com and photo was taken of a current Shutterfly catalog by Mandy W.

At my party I had 14 sets of photo book coupons and coupons for 12 free Christmas cards to give out.  I felt like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve!  Photo books are some of my favorite things to make as I failed with the scrap-booking thing and love pictures of my children.

Add some wine, great tasting cookies and we had a nice time.  My wire-less Internet proved to not be able to handle ten different users at once unfortunately, but everyone got to see how to make a photo book extremely quick and easy for those of us creatively deficient or lacking time.  For the scrappers out there, Shutterfly has some great ways to create your masterpieces with many options, fonts, lay outs and themes.

Thank you Shutterfly for helping my friends and family have a great time.   I cannot wait to see every-ones finished books and cards.  If you want to have your own House Party, you can click here and see what opportunities await you.

Books I've made through Shutterfly.

FireMom and Outnumbered mom enjoying themselves.

(Disclosure:  Shutterfly gave me and 14 of my guests coupon codes for 8×8 hard cover photo books and 12 holiday cards, as well as a Shutterfly bag and pen. I also received a 7×8 soft cover book, and balloons to have at my party.  All of this was in exchange of sharing my Shutterfly products with friends and family. I was not asked to blog about it…but I had such a good time I wanted to!)

Photo Credits:  Mandy W. 2009