Create-A-Greeting-Card Scholarship Look Back Series – 2008 Winter Scenes

Welcome back to the Create-A-Greeting-Card Scholarship Look Back Series. The 2008 winner, George Humeston, submitted a beautiful design featuring a calm winter scene. In today’s entry, we wanted to showcase a couple of designs in our line that also depict stunningly beautiful winter scenes.

2008 Winning Entry – Full Moon Winter Night Christmas Card

Full Moon Winter Night Christmas Card

 Card Description: The majesty of winter reveals itself in a breathtaking silhouette of moonlit tree limbs and iridescent falling snow upon a dreamlike, snow-blanketed landscape. Subtle blends of blue and aquamarine illuminate this strikingly beautiful and powerful painting. Expect awestruck recipients!

City Snowfall Die-cut Seasons Greeting Card

City Snowfall Die-cut Seasons Greeting Card

Card Description: This cobalt blue card shows a lovely night in a town park setting. Streetlights glow within the backdrop of winter snowfall on this dazzling holiday card. The die-cut window in this card will showcase your company name in the foreground to all of your business associates, corporate clients and friends.

Snow Frost Pines Season’s Greeting Card

Snow Frost Pines Season's Greeting Card

Card Description: The tranquil setting and soft watercolors of Snow Frost Pines is a gentle murmur of Season’s Greetings. Send this bit of serenity to your valued corporate clients, business contacts and friends.

Winter Impressions Holiday Card

Winter Impressions Holiday Card

Card Description: Christmas in the Country! What better way to spend the holiday. This old barn is even painted a bright red to celebrate. This is a charming watercolor scene with such great detail you can almost feel the fresh sunshine on your face. Finished off with gold foil accents, this is a lovely card to send or receive.

It is always nice to look at the various different winter scene designs that we have in our line and George’s beautiful entry is a great addition to that group of cards. It truly is a stunning representation of the beautiful calm of winter.

Birthday Cards Offer A Way To Stay Connected To Employees

So many companies have gone global and/or allow so many employees to telecommute that it is often difficult to make everyone feel like they are all part of the same team. People work in different time zones and on very different schedules. Global companies also have different locations celebrating different holidays, so they can’t necessarily wish all of them a happy Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November! An easy way to ensure you get to wish each and every one of your employees well during the year is to send them each a birthday card. Your employees will know the company is thinking of them and it will help them feel more connected to the company. Also, employees may even appreciate receiving  birthday cards even more than they would appreciate a holiday card, as the birthday card is to celebrate their own personal special day.

Happy Birthday To You

In order to make sure you never miss an employee’s birthday (or a friend or family member’s birthday either!), keeping a box of assorted birthday cards on hand at all times. That way, you will not only always be assured of having cards in stock and won’t have to run out to the card store every other day, but you will also have a varied selection of cards to choose from. Personally selecting a card from a box of assorted birthday cards for each employee makes it even more special, as they won’t all get the same card.

Create-A-Greeting-Card Scholarship Look Back Series – 2008 Finalist Highlight

Welcome back to another installment of the Create-A-Greeting-Card Scholarship Contest Look Back series. As we have done for the other contest entries, we always like to draw attention to the finalists.

Every year we get thousands upon thousands of amazing submissions and even through there is only one winner, the finalists deserve to receive as much attention as possible as well. In today’s entry, we wanted to show off a couple of submissions form our finalists which we particularly liked. You can view all of the finalists in the 2008 Scholarship Finalists Gallery. Also, don’t forget to let us know which of the below designs is your favorite in the poll right underneath the gallery.

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Gallery Collection Charitable Donations – National Multiple Sclerosis Society

The Gallery Collection has a long standing history of making charitable donations to organizations that could benefit from greeting cards or holiday cards. One such organization we were very happy to make a donation to is the National Multiple Sclerosis Society – New Jersey Metro Chapter. Our donation of 500 Thank You cards will allow them to thank donors and supporters without the extra expenditure on their organization. And what a great organization it is!

Signature Thank You Cards

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society is a collective of passionate individuals who want to do something about MS now. They are determined to create a world that is free of MS. They help people that are affected to address the challenges of living with MS. The Society helps people by funding cutting-edge research, driving change through advocacy, facilitating professional education, and providing programs and services that help people with MS and their families move their lives forward.

The Gallery Collection is pleased to play a small part in helping achieve these goals.

Why Not Send Thanksgiving Cards?

Believe it or not, it’s September already! While most people are mourning that summer is over, I am thrilled that fall is right around the corner and the holidays are near. Many people are gearing up to send out Christmas cards this holiday season but I say why not be different and unique and send out Thanksgiving cards! With so many diverse designs to choose from at The Gallery Collection, sending out a Thanksgiving card to your clients & customers is a great way to show your appreciation.

Thanksgiving Cards

With Thanksgiving being my absolute favorite holiday, I love to send out cards to show my employees and clients that I am thinking about them during the holiday season. Receiving holiday greeting cards is such a warm and thoughtful gesture from a business. It really makes the holidays so much more meaningful.

Thanksgiving is a holiday when we give thanks for all the blessings in our lives and a time to reflect on the past year with our family, friends and loved ones. And more than ever during this time, sending out greetings cards such as Thanksgiving  shows your fellow employees and clients that you are grateful and thankful for them during this special time of the year!

Business Birthday Cards – To Bulk or Not to Bulk

Business birthday cards are a great asset to any business today. Who doesn’t like to receive a card on their birthday? You can put it on your desk or on a shelf at home. It tells the world that you are not forgotten. Somebody remembers you were born on a certain day. Whether you are a customer, client, employee or friend, being remembered makes you feel special. The question business’s have is not should you send birthday cards, but what kind should you buy. Bulk birthday cards offer you the best buy, but assortments give you variety.

Assorted Birthday Cards

Buying bulk birthday cards can save a good deal of money. When you want to personalize with the company name or logo, it makes sense to order a larger quantity of cards and get the savings. However, many businesses today are looking at a softer and more personal approach.

Assorted birthday cards will give you the option of choosing a particular card for a particular person. The variety of cards usually will have cards that are a combination of light, floral and neutral scenes. If you are sending to a man or woman you will have more of a selection. The downside of assorted birthday cards is that they usually cannot be personalized with your name or logo. You will have to sign these yourself, but that will be an even more personal touch. Since I send about twenty cards a month to clients, I like to write a little note that lends that extra personal touch.

The question to ask yourself is how many cards you will be using this year. Since you will probably be sending too many of the same people next year you will want to send a different card to them. The wise choice is to order enough for one year. Whichever route you choose for business birthday cards, will only enhance your standing among your customers.

Create-A-Greeting-Card Scholarship Look Back Series – 2008 Finalists

Welcome back to another entry in our Create-A-Greeting-Card Scholarship Contest Look Back Series. As we continue our look into the 2008 contest we wanted to use today’s post to showcase two beautiful finalists entries which were turned into a set of amazing Christmas cards in our line. As has been the case in most years of the scholarship contest, we found a couple of entries which while they weren’t selected as the winner, we felt were just too beautiful to pass up.

The first entry is from Corinne Thompson, who submitted a beautiful painting of a quiet and serene view of a snow-covered hill glistening with freshly fallen snow on a cold winter’s day. The scene was just too beautiful to not be added to our line. When we converted the entry into a card, there was not much that needed to be done. Some of the designs details were enhanced with some embossing to give them a three dimensional feel and really make them pop! We also added some multi colored reflective glitter to give the sensation of falling snow before adding it to our line as the Glistening Snowscape Holiday Card.

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The second entry was from Devon Rutherford, who submitted an amazingly detailed painting of a poinsettia with rich red petals and bright yellow stamens. The entry was placed within a beautiful white frame with golden accents to give the card an elegant look and as added to our line as the Seasonal Splendor Holiday Card

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It truly is a testament to the skill and creativity of the entrants when you see just how great the designs are and how just a few enhancements to the submissions can turn them into stunning cards. We hope you enjoyed this look into the 2008 finalists and look forward to next week when we continue our look behind the scenes of the 2008 Scholarship contest.

Choosing Business Christmas Cards – Not for the Faint of Heart

Do you wonder why a certain person in the office is chosen to pick out the business Christmas cards? Is it their sense of style that sets them apart? Or perhaps it’s that they are favored by the boss. Maybe he values their opinion better than everyone else’s. If any of this has crossed your mind think again. If your office is anything like mine, the job goes to the person with the most patience.

Business Christmas Cards

Once upon a time, I was the person with the most patience. Then I was chosen as the Christmas cards selector. My boss said we need a nice card to send to our clients. It can’t be too corporate and it shouldn’t be too cutesy, but I trust you to choose wisely. First mistake I made was to feel pleased he had chosen me. I set about getting catalogs and searching websites with a purpose. A few days later my boss saw me looking at samples and said “You should show them around, get a consensus of what everyone likes”. I had no idea what was to come.

Do you know that in an office of 25 people there will be 30 opinions? It’s true that by the time you have surveyed 25 people, 5 people will have a new opinion. I’m sure you have seen this depicted on Discovery or the Learning Channel, because it is a unique phenomenon reserved for the human race and perfected in the American business office. There have been many studies done on it – it is caused by too much coffee and staring at computer screens too long. All sense of decorum departs with the mention of Christmas cards and a chance to break from the routine. It is encouraged by the fact that the person expressing the opinion does not have to make the decision.

Wisely I narrowed down the selection on the second go around to three choices –  one awful and two really nice cards. The opinions were evenly (and very vocally) divided between two cards, which I promptly presented to the boss with my decision. He chose the third card as our business Christmas cards that year, which nobody liked.

The moral of the story is never believe you are better than your neighbor and always inform the boss that you admire your neighbor’s sense of style. Uh oh, here comes the boss with a birthday card catalog- break time!