post your christmas cards?

Please?? LOL My daughter wants me to make her christmas cards this year and I am not really sure what to do. I dont want to have to buy templates or anything just need some ideas on card designs. Also what size should I make it so when it is printed it wont cut off any? When I did her grad pics I took them to walmart and they were 4x6 and about 1/4 inch got cut off all the way around. It was awful. My daughter was about to cry. The guy who worked there helped us fix them and didnt charge for the messed up photos but I'd rather just have them print ok to start with

You can find 20 types in my gallery. It's necessary to go to the second page to see them all.

I also did 10 others, but I didn't have time to upload yet.

What you describe has happened to me with my last year's calendar - it was awful, 1 cm (0.4 inch) got cut at each side, text included! I *did* cry.

You always need a bleed area when printing (a "grey area" at the edges where you don't put thing that you don't want to be cut). I'd say with postcards it's enough to have a bleed area about 0.2 inch. When I make files for printing, I always make a fake bleed as my top layer so that I can review the design without and with it, so that I can see if it looks right both ways as you can never be sure how much will be cut. I set the opacity to 75% when I work and to 20% when I do the final revision.

You can see how I do it in my gallery as well.

P.S. Important! Of course, when saving the final version, you turn the fake bleed area invisible! It's only meant as a visual guide while working.

I did a bleed area last year, and STILL it was cut off on the sides all the way to some of my text going away. <_< I just am not going to order from the same place this year. As for my actual card... I kinda just bought the kit today.

The standard bleed space is 1/4" ... I add guides around the sides of my image (in 75 pixels, which is the equivalent of 1/4") to show where the bleed space is and make sure I don't put anything important in that area. Good luck!