Don't Forget Mother's Day on May 13

It is not too early to be thinking about Mother’s Day.  I am going to go out on a limb here and say that most moms that I know would LOVE to receive a heartfelt message in a REAL greeting card more than an obligatory gift purchased.  Sincerely written, kind words will conjure happy memories and be read again and again.

God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.

SendOutCards makes it easier to pick out a greeting card that is more personalized for your mom with its twelve subcategories to narrow your search. No more standing in a card isle for hours!  Use the SEARCH box at the top of the CARD CATALOG to get a Mother’s Day greeting card with a certain theme.  Ex: Write the words (mother, dog) and check the MATCH ALL WORDS box to get cards that have dogs on them that have something to do with mothers.

 You're a dog-gone good mom.

Drop in a few photos of what is going on in your life to personalize it all the more.  Even create a PicturePlus greeting card from scratch with personal photos on the front and inside.  How cool is that!

The most important thing is that you send a greeting card to your mom.  Make the message thoughtful and honest; it doesn’t need to be long.  A simple “I love you” works also.  You can write it today and choose the delayed delivery on the SEND CARD page if you want it to arrive closer to Mother’s Day.

Happy Mother's Day Card Sending!

The Adventures of Flat Stanley

Have you read any of the Flat Stanley books by Jeff Brown? Flat Stanley was an ordinary boy until a bulletin board falls on him while he's sleeping. He is flattened and decides to travel the world by mailing himself to friends!

For a school project, our 11 year old grandson, Adam, created a Flat Stanley and mailed him to us with the instructions to take photos of Flat Stanley, mail the school a letter or postcard telling the students where their Flat Stanleys had traveled and then mail him on to some new location. What fun!Well, it was a sunny day on Easter Sunday (one of our first for a long, long time), so I decided to take Flat Stanley on an Easter Egg Hunt! It made perfect sense, really, since our grandchildren had come up the week before to stay for Spring Break so our home was childless on Easter.
It was quite an adventure since Flat Stanley is a daredevil climber and very sleuth-like in sniffing out clues to the egg with the money in it (in Howard's pocket). I had fun taking lots of photos and then loading them into my SendOutCards account to create a fun three panel greeting card describing some of the eggs he found. I love the creative features of SendOutCards; it allowed me some fun play time in making my own greeting card so easily.
Flat Stanley even went to work with Howard and tried his hand at jack hammering. The photo of that trip was sent by postcard. How easy: just load a photo into the account and create a postcard with that photo splashed across the front! In just a few minutes I had a very personalized post card. I love SendOutCards!!! Flat Stanley is on his way to Mexico with Donna, my mom, and sister, Denise, and then on to St. Louis with my daughter Katie. Here's hoping a Flat Stanley will visit your home for a fun adventure someday! If so, send me a card.

Happy Card Sending!

Have an Egg-stra Special Easter Holiday

I know you'll have an Egg-stra fun Easter holiday!

With the Easter holiday having different meanings to a variety of people, SendOutCards has a basket full of greeting cards to fit your desired mood. In the Card Catalog, after choosing Easter from the Holiday Category, you may select from the categories: Anyone, Humorous, Just For Kids, and Religious. Of course, you may find the style of greeting card you are looking for by using the search button at the top of the Card Catalog by filling the search box with the words: easter, bunny and clicking the button "match all keywords" when you have more than one word in the search box.

TIP: I do not capitalize words in the search box.

Happy Easter

With SendOutCards, I love the fact that I may find the perfect card for the person I care about, write a heartfelt message and my card is sent in a matter of minutes. Also, one of the wonderful features of the SendOutCards greeting card service is the ability to personalize each card by changing the inside message or writing one of your own. If you choose to spend more time on each card, this service allows for that, giving you the chance to design each card specifically for the person you’re sending it to so each one will be unique. You may even look for quotes or poems online and include them on the inside of your card. Or, choose many of our greeting cards that already have a nice thought, poem or quote on the inside and just concentrate your minutes on your personal message at the bottom or on the blank side of the card. And of course, if you like the front of one of our greeting cards and the verse on the inside of another card, you may always cut and paste that message. So many options!

A colorful celebration of new beginnings, miracles, and hope. May the celebration last throughout your life. Happy Easter

Happy Easter Card Sending!

Don't Roast the Easter Peeps

Easter is around the corner. Store shelves are stocked with Easter Peeps, those sugary sweet puffs of fluff in a variety of colors and shapes. No one in my family is really a fan of Peeps so one Easter, several years ago, we decided to try an experiment with pink Peeps since the grandchildren were visiting. We sat around a fire pit and tried to roast them as you would a yummy marshmallow. Thinking they were a type of cousin to a marshmallow, we were shocked to watch in amazement that the fire didn’t roast them turning them into a soft, warm blob of sweet goodness but only melted them into a hardened plastic-like blob; rendering them rather indestructible.

Our Finding: PEEPS DON’T ROAST!

Which explains why this funny article in last month’s LDS Living Magazine caught my eye. I think it will give you a chuckle:

What Easter basket is complete without one of those gooey yellow chicks sitting contentedly on the plastic grass? But Peeps are more than just a lovable and tasty candy; in fact, thanks to research conducted in 1999 by Emory University scientists James Zinring and Gary Falcon, Peeps have gained a reputation for being nearly indestructible.

Strength: Most consumers of the marshmallow treat believe the candy is made primarily of sugar, a substance that dissolves in water. However, Zinring and Falcon found that the Peeps refuse to dissolve and instead merely float on top of the water, hot or cold. Peeps also cannot be dissolved in acetone, surfuric acid, or sodium hydroxide.

Weakness: Zinring and Falcon successfully deconstructed Peeps by dousing them in Phenol, a solvent with the ability to dissolve protein (coincidentally, this solvent is lethal to humans). The candy was dissolved within an hour, but left behind the wax eyes common to Peeps.

Americans, for the most part, are oblivious to this research and continue to buy over 700 million Peeps a year. In their 60 years of existence, marshmallow Peeps show no signs of losing their beloved status in Easter tradition.

And guess what???

SendOutCards has a PINK PEEPS greeting card so you may send a fun card to your favorite "peeps"!

Have a Sweet Easter! (inside message)

Happy Easter Card Sending!

Traveler Tip

Considering that Spring Break is around the corner, I thought I would give you a heads up. Go early to the airport. We have become kind of casual in arriving early for our flights. But this week, we had a rude awakening.

We were traveling on a Tuesday morning no less. We thought nothing of getting to the airport one hour ahead. Well, we were shocked to be standing in a security line for over 45 minutes with no chance of getting on the other side before our flight left. Howard is much more brave than I am so he talked to the nice airport lady and she let us in the First Class lane so we jumped four rows ahead. Thank goodness!

If you are traveling to someplace fun, send a postcard to us here at home! SendOutCards has lots of cards with place names. For example: Skiing in Utah this week? You should be. We were just there and it dumped tons more dry fluffy snow in the resorts. Type utah in the search box at the top of the card catalog. Did you notice that I didn't capitalize Utah; it seems to work in the search better if you don't.

We all love getting mail but I have noticed that grand children and grandparents LOVE, LOVE, LOVE getting personal mail. So if you are traveling, your grandchildren would probably prefer a postcard with a personal message mailed specifically to them over a drawer full of cheap T-shirts! Better yet, make it a postcard with your own digital photo of your trip with YOU on the front and add a thought bubble saying something cute. They will LOVE that!

Happy Card Sending!

The Extra Mile Smile

There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. Roger Staubach (card inside)

In the latest Wally Amos column in my Costco Connection magazine, he writes about “GOING THE EXTRA MILE” in our personal and business relationships. He teaches us that going the extra mile encourages loyalty and support in employees, customers and friends alike. Here are his comments:

"Going the extra mile indeed means giving everyone you come into contact with more than they expect. Going the extra mile doesn't mean you'll have less if you give more. It means making the people in your life feel special. It's letting them know that you genuinely appreciate them.

It could be something seemingly as small as a thank-you or remembering their birthday with a card. That extra effort lets people know you are not taking them for granted. The reward for making others feel special is that you also feel special!"

Later in the article Wally Amos continues:
"I heard a former high school teacher turned superintendent say that every time he would see a student in the halls he would imagine the initials MMFS on his or her forehead: MAKE ME FEEL SPECIAL."

Everyone wants to feel special and we have that ability by simple acts of kindness we exhibit at any given moment. We can touch and improve someone's day by just giving them a smile, a word of encouragement or even showing them that they are needed. USE the simple process of SendOutCards to drop a note in LESS THAN 3 MINUTES and it will not even feel like an EXTRA MILE effort since it is so easy! A REAL greeting card in the mail will allow someone to read and reread your kind words over and over again to extend that special feeling they receive even farther! I promise:

YOU will also feel better!

I highlighted in orange so I could say to you, "Orange you glad you did this?"

From Thomas S. Monson, a leader whom I admire:
"THINK TO THANK. Take things with gratitude rather than for granted."
Happy Card Sending!

But I lose the inside of my card!

Yes, it’s true. When you choose the POSTCARD option from the SendOutCards card catalog, if your card had an inside message, it does not appear on the back of your postcard. It is a matter of giving you more space to write your heartfelt message of the back of the postcard. But if you just LOVED the inside message, this is all you have to do . . . On the pop up window where you choose the POSTCARD button:

1. First click the INSIDE button at the top
2. Highlight the words below the card where you see the message written in regular type then right click to choose COPY or copy it (CONTROL C)
3. Now click the POSTCARD option
4. On the “Personalize It” page (where you are taken to write your message), click in the box that says, “Click here to type your message”
5. Paste that previously saved inside message: Hit CONTROL V or right click to choose PASTE

You might need to hit your space bar to activate the inside of the text box. You may also want to resize the words so you have enough room to write your personal message below or above it. There you have it! You didn’t even need to memorize the cute verse to retype it. Cute postcard!!! Brighten someone’s day with a cheery postcard sent in the mail to remind them that Spring is around the corner and wish them a joyful Spring . . .

Happy Card Sending!