Author: Henry L.

Business Thanksgiving Cards with Glittering Maple Leaves

The Gallery Collection has introduced a new business Thanksgiving cards design that’s sure to impress friends, relatives, and business clients you wish to extend Thanksgiving wishes to this season. Design #132CW, Glittering Maple Leaves Thanksgiving Card, shows off the Thanksgiving fall colors in true autumn splendor. The design has a thick framed border in smooth chocolate brown that looks as though chocolate syrup was poured around the outer border of the card design…and let’s be honest, who doesn’t love chocolate of any kind

Design #132CW - Glittering Maple Leaves Thanksgiving Card
Design #132CW - Glittering Maple Leaves
Thanksgiving Card

In the center of this rich chocolate brown frame is a raised picturesque array of sun kissed orange maple leaves with hints of red, brown and green. The large orange-hued leaves that appear in the forefront sparkle with tiny beads of glitter reflecting off the sun and resembling morning dew drops brushed onto the leaves. The glitter is actually printed directly into the card design so there aren’t any flecks that come off on your hands that would undoubtedly end up on your face or in your hair. This is a unique feature of The Gallery Collection’s greeting cards.

Framed around this slightly raised picture of maple leaves is a thin sea foam colored border that goes around the picture of the leaves but not quite to the inner edge of the chocolate brown border. This gives the maple leaves added depth around the centered frame edges. The final touch that pulls this elegant design together is the words “Thanksgiving Wishes” centered below the picturesque leaves in an antique gold foil.

This elegant design places you right into the seasonal view, where you imagine yourself walking through a park or a neighborhood lined with beautiful trees on a brisk autumn day; the leaves are floating down around you. As you stroll along taking pictures, you spot a pile of leaves that have fallen to the ground and a sun beam bounces off the maple leaves. You take that perfect picture of nature’s foliage. Now that’s the way to express your Thanksgiving greetings, showcasing the true colors of the season.

Business Holiday Cards that will Keep you in the Minds of your Recipients

Design 149CW, Golden Snowscape Holiday Card, is one of my favorite business holiday cards introduced into The Gallery Collection line this year. It is a photograph of a lake with the sun, low in the sky but glowing brilliantly. The surrounding trees and foliage are reflected in the water. The golden sparkle effects enhance the warm earth tones of brown, gold and rust, while the snow covered banks and branches add the winter touches that celebrate Christmas. The deep brown border and simple “Season’s Greetings” sentiment allows you to send this holiday card to friends and family or to use as your business Christmas cards.

And FYI, this photograph was the winner of The Gallery Collection’s 1st annual Create-A-Greeting-Card $10,000 Scholarship Contest. It was submitted by Elizabeth Digre, a junior at the University of Southern Maine.

Design #149CW - Golden Snowscape Holiday Card
Design #149CW - Golden Snowscape Holiday Card

I know what you’re thinking about design 864CX, Red Berry Greetings Holiday Card – when did black become a Christmas color? Who would send black holiday cards? Red, green, and white are the typically holiday colors. Trees, candy canes, ornaments, snowmen, and snow flakes are the common reminders of the holiday season. But if you’re looking for a business holiday card to put you a step above your competition, this is the one for you!

Just take a good look at this gorgeous card! It is such a simple design yet the classic gold foil and red berries make it so elegant! This card is rich with texture. You can feel how the branches are imprinted into the black matte paper. Without seeing the card in front of you, you probably can’t see the detail on the bottom right, but the ground where the berry branches are growing is actually raised! The red berries are embossed and add such flavor to the design.

Design #864CX - Red Berry Greetings Holiday Card
Design #864CX - Red Berry Greetings Holiday Card

Don’t forget, you choose the greeting that appears inside your holiday cards. It will be printed in gold foil. Centered below the greeting, we offer two lines of personalization at no extra charge. How chic and sophisticated your company name will look!

This beautiful card will leave a lasting impression with your friends and clients. They will remember how thoughtful you were for taking the time to select a design with such timeless class and elegance. Sending this card has a two-fold purpose: one, to send well wishing holiday greetings and two, to keep your name in their minds!

Personalized Holiday Cards with Whirling Snowflakes and Stars of Peace

The Gallery Collection recently introduced some new personalized holiday cards to its already extensive line of cards. One of the designs, #150CS Whirling Snowflakes Christmas Card, features (as the name suggests) lots of snowflakes. The blue foil in this holiday card beautifully reflects and enhances the luster of snowflakes almost as well as Mother Nature does. The muted background, which is an enlargement of the snowflake itself mysteriously veiled in lavender, softens and adds interest to the total design. Tying everything together, of course, the “Season’s Greetings” sentiment underneath the art is very tastefully done. The only negative I have is that, for a true snowflake lover such as I am, some of the snowflakes are the same. One of the most important features of snowflakes is that each and every one is different!

Design #150CS - Whirling Snowflakes Christmas Card
Design #150CS - Whirling Snowflakes
Christmas Card

Design #829CX, Star of Peace Holiday Card, is another new design recently introduced by The Gallery Collection. One of the main reasons I like this card is that the words “Peace on Earth” stand out so boldly. The star and its radii are lovely, but to me the heavily embossed, variegated foil with a direct and dynamic message is what I want my recipients to see first. This is a holiday card that is going to be well received in any home or office. It is kind of important to me to make sure that my choice in holiday cards is one that will not offend anyone. I work with a wide diversity of people and my goal is to please them all. I have decided to order early, because I have a feeling this Peace On Earth design may sell out soon!

Design #829CX - Star of Peace Holiday Card
Design #829CX - Star of Peace Holiday Card

Custom Holiday Cards and New Christmas Gift Traditions

I recently began cooking and baking as a hobby. Last year, I started a new tradition by baking Christmas goodies and making fudge and other chocolate treats as Christmas gifts. It was such a success that I would like to extend this tradition even further, and be able to send homemade goodies to my family and friends both near and far. That is why I am going to include my favorite recipes in the custom holiday cards that I send out this year.

I had never made gifts before, so I was nervous as to how the recipients of these gifts would react. Would they think I was just cheap and/or ran out of shopping time?! My fears were all unfounded, as it turned out that all the recipients were overjoyed, or at least seemed to be! Cooking or baking something special for someone can show how much you care for them, and taking time out during the already-busy holiday season to do so is an even more meaningful gesture.

I would like to send this sort of gift to more distant relatives and friends this year. I thought of perhaps baking the items myself and shipping them, but for the sake of freshness and quality control I thought better of it! Besides, sending the recipes themselves rather than finished products would allow me to tailor the “gift” more to the individual recipients. While I don’t really have time to make 50 different things for 50 different people, I can certainly pick 50 different recipes to share! Custom holiday cards are so convenient and afford me some extra time – time which I can use to select the special recipes to enclose in my cards. I’ll have the time to dig through my recipe box, or just to dig through my memory to figure out which recipe to send each person. Also, they then hopefully keep the card and the recipe and think of me whenever they prepare the dish.

Will it be a Traditional Business Holiday Card or a Die-Cut Holiday Card?

I have my own personal business, and each year I like to take advantage of the great pre-season discounts offered by The Gallery Collection, the leading business holiday cards publisher in the nation, from whom I order my holiday cards each year and send out to my loyal customers. I asked for two free samples again this year. The first one, design #167CW, Chickadee Greetings Holiday Card, features a picture of a little chickadee on the front while the other design, #156CS, Snowflurry Greetings Holiday Card, is one of those die-cut holiday greeting cards that allows a company name to show through from the inside printing. Both are so beautiful that I don’t know which one to order.

Design #167CW - Chickadee Greetings Holiday Card
Design #167CW - Chickadee Greetings
Holiday Card

The one with the chickadee is a white card that is glossy, with rich foil and sparkling silver foil on the snow-covered tree limb on which the bird is perched. The die-cut holiday card, also white and glossy, features silver embossed foil in the shape of a snowflake with royal blue accenting underneath. I like the idea of having my company name appearing on the front, so-to-speak, while the card is closed, but I also just love the clarity and colors on the other chickadee design.

Design #156CS - Snowflurry Greetings Die-Cut Holiday Card
Design #156CS - Snowflurry Greetings
Die-Cut Holiday Card

So, will it be the more traditional business holiday card or the die-cut holiday card? I guess I’ll have to make up my mind eventually, but thankfully I have some time to ponder before the discount drops.

Using Christmas Cards to Think Outside the Box

Christmas cards are sometimes more than meets the eye. Yes, I did just use a line from Transformers but not the movie…the only place real Transformers exist in my mind – the cartoon!

Take any of those business Christmas cards you received this holiday season for instance. They may look like just mere Christmas cards to you, but there are other things you can do with these works of art. How about converting them into your own masterpiece? Cut the front off of these beautiful designs; make a collage; and hang them on your wall. Maybe put them in your cubicle, and keep that holiday spirit all year long.

If you want to be really advanced, try and make a customized gift box out of them. These Christmas greeting cards can help make any gift look good. Take a plain gift box, spruce it up with a bunch of cut outs from Christmas cards from years past. Now look at that plain gift box…not so plain anymore, now is it?!?

I kept last year’s Christmas cards and strung them altogether, hung them off the top of the ceiling, and look at that…I had a festive banner. So don’t think all you have to do with your Christmas cards is open them, hang them on your mantle, and then throw them out. There’s infinite ways to use these little pieces of art. Just be creative and think outside the box.

Religious Christmas Cards for my Family & Season’s Greetings Cards for my Friends

You must check out the newest personalized Christmas cards from the Gallery Collection. Being the devout Catholic that I am, I only send religious Christmas cards; I refuse to send out Season’s Greeting cards – except to my non-Christian friends, of course. Jesus is the reason for the season and I proudly proclaim this when choosing the Christmas cards I send each year. I know it’s politically correct to say “Season’s Greetings” – even shopping mall employees are forbidden to wish us a Merry Christmas. Although last year I told the cashier that if she didn’t wish me a Merry Christmas I would leave without buying anything. Knowing which side her bread is buttered on, she mouthed it very quietly but I could tell she agreed with me.

One of The Gallery Collection’s new and exquisite designs, #126CW Madonna & Child Religious Christmas Card, features a painting by Sassoferrato, who is also known as Giovanni Battista Salvi. The colors of red, white, and blue in the Virgin Mary’s robes are so vivid. The material is so soft you can practically feel it and the detail in the folds of her robes are so well defined. Looking at Mary’s young beautiful face you can’t help but feel the anguish her expression foretells. You can feel the love she has for this babe – the fruit of her womb – yet she seems to be looking to the future at the trials and tribulations he will endure. Her arms are wrapped around him trying to protect him from all harm, as a mother is to do. She seems to be at peace yet her eyes are not completely closed. She knows that her love is not enough to keep this special child safe and so she will remain vigilant. Yet the baby Jesus is sleeping soundly. He knows that he is in good hands – his mother’s and his father’s. He has his hand resting on top of his mother’s, the child protecting the mother. He’s telling her not to worry. He knows the end will be triumphant. This beautiful image is surrounded by a shiny gold regal border, the old juxtaposed with the new, that seems to remind us that this event is as alive today as it was 2,000 years ago.

Design #126CW - Madonna & Child Religious Christmas Card
Design #126CW - Madonna & Child
Religious Christmas Card

Another new design that I will be sending to my non-Christian friends and associates is design #094CX, Golden Greetings Holiday Card. This card is of such high quality, rich paper stock. There are three ornamental designs – a tree, a stocking, and a bell – on the cover that are embossed and detailed in gold foil. There are silver foil snowflakes that sparkle and reflect beautiful colors; they seem to pop off the paper! The three designs are more commercial than “Christmassy” and since it reads “Season’s Greetings,” you can really send this holiday card to anyone and still be politically correct. The personalization in gold foil (not gold ink) on the inside of the card is so classy and it ties the outside and inside together nicely. I must say, while it’s not a religious Christmas card, it is rather impressive.

Design #094CX - Golden Greetings Holiday Card
Design #094CX - Golden Greetings Holiday Card

How Personalized Thank You Cards Helped my Faraway Daughter

Last May my lovely daughter decided she needed a change of scenery and a warmer climate. Little did I know she would also need some inspiration in the form of some personalized thank you cards!

It all started when she decided to move to California, where, to her delight, the scenery was gorgeous and the weather fabulous. She settled right in as if she had been there forever and soon landed a nice job in a property management office. “But you don’t know anything about property management,” said I. “So what? My boss says he can teach me the business,” said she. And he did. In no time she was promoted to office manager.

Her boss, wonderful guy that he is, surprised my daughter with a luncheon to celebrate her promotion. All the employees were invited to the nice little Italian Bistro down the street. They had a wonderful afternoon of wining and dining and celebrating. My daughter was so thankful to her boss, her co-workers and the little Italian Bistro and she wanted to let them know how grateful she was for all that they had done for her.

So she called me up to see if I had any ideas. Of course I had an idea! I always have an idea and it usually includes a personalized thank you card from The Gallery Collection where I just happen to work, and where they just happen to have the most spectacular thank you cards on the planet.

She had to agree, The Gallery Collection’s thank you cards are fabulous. So she picked out a really lovely design and had her name imprinted in beautiful gold foil on them. She sent them to her boss, her co-workers and to that little Italian Bistro. Needless to say, they all loved the cards (and the homemade chocolate-chip cookies she included with each card!)

She may be 3,000 miles away now, but lucky for her, Mom and The Gallery Collection’s thank you cards are just a phone call away!

Thinking of You Cards Cover a Variety of Happenstance

When you have an occasion to send business get well cards, you don’t really want it to look like a corporate get well card. I mean, it should be friendly and attractive as opposed to stodgy and bland. When I look at design #222AY, Victorian Wreath Thinking of You Card, I see a soft and caring motif with the simple “Thinking of You” next to the stunning loosely woven wreath. The delicate mauve roses and ecru berries are discreetly interwoven with the pastel blue ribbon. Not only can this design serve as a business get well card, but “Thinking of You” are words that can cover a variety of happenstances. One could use greeting S4, “Thinking of You at this Time,” or leave the card blank and express a personal message. While my inclination would have been to write the words in blue rather than green foil, it doesn’t merit changing because it is still very appealing in the green foil.

Design #222AY - Victorian Wreath Thinking of You Card
Design #222AY - Victorian Wreath
Thinking of You Card

For design #049AY, Thinking of You Lilies Greeting Card, I love the pastel hues used in this design. The choice of the sandy rose pink and mossy green is both appealing and soothing. Even the way the lilies are nestled upon the curling leaves draws you to the flowers, which will evoke feelings of comfort. Flowers symbolize many different things to many different people. That is why there is only the need to say, “Thinking of You.” In times of distress or sorrow, when words don’t always come to us easily, one can never make a mistake by saying, “Thinking of You.”

Design #049AY - Thinking of You Lilies Greeting Card
Design #049AY - Thinking of You Lilies
Greeting Card

An Ironic Business Christmas Cards Keepsake

When I got divorced from my ex-husband in 1989, it was a very stressful eight months of going back and forth between lawyers and negotiating over every possible detail involving the custody of our children. During the middle of all the negotiations, Christmas arrived with all the usual mail full of holiday cards. But this year, one particular card stood out amongst all the other business Christmas cards I had received. It was from my lawyer and it was the most beautiful and peaceful card I had ever seen. It was a slate blue winter scene with silver snowflakes and a silver full moon. It was the same color blue as my kitchen, so when Christmas was over, I threw all the others cards I received away except for the one from my lawyer. I put it in a Ziploc bag and said I would get a frame for it and hang it in my kitchen.

Several years passed and I got a job working for a company that sells Christmas cards. After my two week training period, I was on the phone selling cards and looking through the catalog, and there was the beautiful card that my lawyer had sent me. I was now working for that company! The card still sat in my kitchen drawer, unframed. Was it fate or irony? The beautiful card that cost me over $5,000 in lawyer’s fees was made by the company I now worked for. The card originally represented peace in the midst of a very stressful period. It now represented my new life at a wonderful greeting cards company!

Twelve years later the beautiful card still remains in the Ziploc baggie, the white paper just starting to turn yellow around the edges. I don’t want to frame it since my kitchen is no longer a slate blue; but I cannot throw it out either. I guess I will put it back in my kitchen drawer and perhaps when I need some peace in the future I will take it out and look at it again.