Holiday eGreetings

So you thought you were going to send handmade holiday greetings this year but here you are, December 15, and you are realizing that you are not going to have them done in time to be mailed out. Or maybe you’ve over spent your holiday budget and need to save some money on postage? Did your calendar get ahead of you? Maybe you’re just looking for an alternative way to send greetings to those on your list without having to cut down a forest.

Not to fear, Hybrid Chick is here! Now you’re probably thinking…. “Hybrid=digi + glue. How am I going to get this done if I’m going to have to wait on glue to dry?” Well, this hybrid project will not involve any glue! For real, I promise!

This idea will save you time and money, save the environment a tree or two, and still allow you to deliver a personal holiday greeting to everyone on your address list. Email address list that is! I’m going to share some pointers for creating an email card that you can send out to your family, friends and loved ones.

Here are the supplies what you will need for this project:

Your computer
Photo editing software that you use for digi scrapping such as Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, PaintShop, etc
Holiday digi scrap goodies. (there are tons available at The Digi Chick, just take a look at these)
Photos if you’d like
eMail system and your email address list
That’s it! As promised, no glue required!

Let’s get started! Open your photo editing software and create a new blank file. I am using Photoshop CS4, my screen captures are from that system, if you are using a different software, your screen will not look the same and your software commands will vary.

You’re going to want to format your file so that it can be viewed by most email viewers. So you’ll want to make your document no wider than 650 pixels. You can make it as long as you’d like, but keep in mind, the longer it is, the more the recipient has to scroll to see your greeting, and they won’t be able to see it all at once (unless they have a really big monitor). So keep the length to about 700-800 pixels. You’ll also want the resolution to be 300 ppi since that will match the digi-scrap goodies that you’ll be adding.

Now begin creating your greeting as you would a digi scrapbook layout. As you add items to your design, you’ll want to resize them to fit your document.

When resizing, be certain that you select to “constrain proportions”. This will keep the papers, elements and photos that you working with from getting a squished or distorted look. In PS CS4 you can click on the link button located between the width and height percentage, or you can press and hold the Shift key while you click and drag one of the transform corner handles (circled in red).

Once you have your greeting designed, you’ll want to flatten the layers and save the file as a .jpg. Make sure you keep track of where you saved the file on your hard drive.

To create this first greeting I used: Ho Ho Ho by Laura Banasiak; Joyful by Roben-Marie Designs; Fuss Free Dotted Borders by Fiddle Dee Dee Designs, and Ornament Cuts Templates by Kelleigh Ratzlaff.

Want an even easier way to make up an eGreeting?? Try some of these products available at The Digichick:

These are just a sampling of what is available, you can find more here.

With these prepared card layouts, you can easily add your photo, a sentiment, resize and be ready to send out through email. Here is a sample that I made using Retrospect Peace on Earth Christmas Cards by Quirky Twerp.

Now you can open your email system, start a new message and insert your email card image as the body of your email and prepare to send it out. Use the “insert picture” function of your email system to place the .jpg file as the body of your email.

Using proper email etiquette, place the recipients email addresses in the “BCC” (Blind Carbon Copy) area. This will keep you from inadvertently sharing email addresses for people who wish to keep them private.

Most email handling systems have SPAM filters to weed out junk mail. You’re going to want your greeting to not be thought of as junk mail by those systems. So here are a few pointers to help your email by delivered successfully.

File size: The larger your file is, the more likely it will be viewed as SPAM.
Do not include links embedded in the graphic or image as these trigger some SPAM filters
Avoid the use of html code in your graphic
Animated files trigger many SPAM filters, so do not create or save your image as a gif file format
Avoid the use of profound language in the subject and body of your email

There’s still plenty of time for you to send those personalized cards that you wanted to do. You can get these eGreetings ready to go in a flash! I hope you’ll find these tips helpful to take a bit of stress out of your holidays while allowing you to spread some holiday shear to your friends and family.

Holiday eGreetings

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