OK, let’s face it, the start of 2011 is really just two days away!  And that means that before we know it, Valentine’s Day will be here!  If you’ve gone to the local drug store or mall, you’ll already have noticed that the Christmas decor has been put away and slowly stuffed animals and red candy hearts are filling the shelves.

As an adult, Valentine’s Day has become a holiday in which we shower our loved one with gifts and plan an elaborate dinner to show our affection.  Or, if we’re single, we spend the night sitting on the couch watching Lifetime movies and  stuffing our faces with a bowl of popcorn and candy we bought for ourselves.  Remember how fun Valentine’s Day was as a child, when the biggest worry was that someone else had the same Valentine cards as you had?  For those of us with children, pretty soon it will be time to start shopping for the perfect Valentines to hand out at your child’s Valentine’s Day party.  For most kids it will be Ninja Turtle Valentines, Hannah Montana Valentines or Care Bear Valentines.  OR, you can do something totally different and choose a Valentine from our collection and have it truly personalized for your child!  This way, your child is sure to have a unique and one-of-a-kind Valentine all their own!

Our kids Valentine collection features a multitude of designs for young boys and girls – and even tweens!  Girls can choose from whimsical princess, heart, cupcake, pop rock, bird or striped valentines, and boys can choose from robots, sports, monster truck or pirate Valentine themes.  We even have photo valentine cards so that you can put your child’s face on their favorite valentine card.  This also makes for a great keepsake in that photo album to be looked back upon a few years from now.

My personal favorite of the new collection is the U Rock Valentine shown above!  Take a look at some of our other fun and brand new valentines below…

Can’t wait for Valentine’s Day to tell someone you’re sweet on them?  We can’t either!  Visit our entire Valentine’s Day Collection today to pick up your valentines, valentine greeting cards or Valentine’s Day party invitations!

Are you ready for some football?!  The playoffs are just over a week away and pretty soon it will be time to host that annual Superbowl Party for your neighbors, friends and co-workers.  I have thrown a few football parties in the past but have neglected to do so in the past few years as my favorite teams either haven’t been playing, or I was busy with moving after the holidays.  I think it’s about time to host another party, and I’m praying that the Giants will make it to the playoffs this year, (but not holding my breath)!

So what goes into the making of a great Superbowl party?  To start off, you’ll need the perfect invitation to make sure your guests are ready for game-day.  We have just about every football invitation you can think of at InvitationBox.  One of our newer vendors, Special Event Ticketing, makes game-day ticket stub invitations that look just like the tickets you receive for a major sporting event. You can choose your own ticket colors, (to match with your winning team), as well as envelope colors and coordinating lanyards for VIP events.  Tickets not your style?  We also have traditional football invitations featuring watercolor football designs, invitations that look like football fields or modern cards with vintage football game signs, buckets of beer and game-day snacks, goal posts and die-cut football designs.

Checkout some of our favorite football party invitations below…

Ready to start planning?  Remember that along with a great football invitation goes great food, brew and a great atmosphere.  Decorate your party location with the colors of your favorite team or if you have fans of different teams attending, decorate your location with all of the NFL team themes.  Serve up some great beer and finger foods to keep everyone full.  You may even want to host a few bets or games to help everyone get involved during the game.  This is great for those guests attending that may not be the biggest football fans.  Everyone will watch to see how many points they get for each touchdown or yard gain.

Remember, Superbowl Sunday is on February 6th!  No time better than the present to plan your Superbowl XLV party!

Nothing goes along with an adult affair like a cocktail to toast and celebrate the honoree.  At InvitationBox.com we have a bunch of new cocktail party invitations right in time for the new year.  So whether you’re toasting at midnight or simply planning a fun cocktail party early in the year with friends, there’s a little something for everyone.

The fun invitation to the left is our Cocktails Invitation by Checkerboard.  Featuring a sleek black card stock, the silver cocktails really jump off the card with the high-contrast in colors with the paper and ink.  You can even change it up with a different ink color and the cocktails will be printed in the same ink color chosen for the text. 

Some of our other cocktail party invitations feature modern designs with silhouette cocktails or window see-through cut-outs.  We also have more fun cocktail cards for those hosting a cocktail party with a tropical or Hawaiian theme, a birthday outing or a fun corporate event.  We even have chic cocktail invitations for those girly customers shopping for a girl’s night invitation, bachelorette party invitation or simply an excuse to get together with friends to take their little black dress out of the back of their closet.

When planning your next cocktail party, consider possibly creating your own special drink to serve to your guests as they arrive.  It can be a drink recipe you find online or create your very own unique recipe from your favorite liquors and liquids!  One of my friends once created her own cocktail for her wedding which matched the flavor of her event, (tropical) and also matched her wedding colors, (aqua and brown).  It was a tasty treat that everyone enjoyed, which also made for a great table display.

With all that being said, don’t think that I forgot about Christmas being just 2 days away!  Don’t forget to have a few HOLIDAY cocktails over the long weekend ahead!  We at InvitationBox.com would like to wish all of our customers a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a safe holiday weekend.  We appreciate your continued business and look forward to working with you in the coming year!

Pretty soon it’ll be too late to say ” ‘Tis the season! “.  But that doesn’t mean we need to stop celebrating during the winter months.  One of the things I love most is attending celebrations after the holiday festivities have died down.  Once the holidays are over, I always feel like I get into a little funk after the excitement and joy has ended.  Winter parties always perk me right up and put me back into the holiday spirit.  It’s also a great way to include more family and friends in your winter event as everyone is not already busy with other party plans, corporate business or travel arrangements.

Many corporate companies also host winter holiday parties during the January – February months rather than over Christmas.  This way more people can attend and the company can wait for the end of the business year to close so that all odds and ends are taken care of before the celebrations. 

Our winter party invitations are great for kids birthday party invitations, adult cocktail party invitations, corporate events or adult birthday party invitations.  This card here on the left, called the Merry Snowman Christmas Invitation, is adorable with a modern robin’s egg blue snowing background and a snowman donning his orange scarf.  We have fun and whimsical winter invitations like this one featuring snowmen, cartoon ice skaters and mittens.  We also have more elegant winter party invitations featuring silver, white and blue snowflakes, winter damask patterns and snow scape designs.

Send your winter party invitations out the first week of January, right after the Christmas holiday.  This way your invitation won’t get mixed up in the toss of the holiday mail and your guests will have time to prepare for your event.  You may even want your guests to come in winter attire or themed with white and silver.  Get creative and plan for a really fun party in these cold winter months!

It’s almost a new year…that means it’s time for a new you!  Start off the new year on the right foot with a new years greeting card from our festive collection.  The card on the left is one of our brand new New Years holiday card designs from IB Designs – New Years With Fireworks.  The card features a slick black background with an array of gold bursting fireworks that burst behind the golden city.  “Happy New Year!” is pre-printed at the bottom of the card and your holiday greeting or sentiment is printed on the inside of your card with the wording of your choice.  This striking card is available with quick-ship options like rush processing, upgraded shipping or super rush processing.  If super rush processing is selected, the order can ship same-day!  Choose next day air shipping and you can have your new years greeting cards in your hands tomorrow.  There’s nothing worse than waiting ’til the last minute, but nothing better than having your problem solved the next day.  Remember, you still have almost two weeks until new years, and new years cards can even be sent after January 1st.

With all this talk about New Years, I got to thinking, what are YOUR new years resolutions this year?  Some years I try to make a resolution, however I typically don’t keep it throughout the year.  This year I think I might make more of a personal resolution.  Be nicer to others, donate to charity, do something I enjoy on a regular basis.  These things seem easier to promise and actually follow through on. 

What are the most popular new years resolutions this year?  As usual, I did my research, and here’s some great resolutions that might inspire you to follow your own this year!

-Lose weight
-Work on self confidence
-Save money
-Give up smoking or a bad habit
-Eat better
-Get fit
-Take a trip
-Learn something new
-Volunteer

Inspired?  Share your success story or how you plan to follow your new years resolution for next year!  Happy New Year everyone!

The new year is a little bit less than two weeks away!  For those who have friends, family or clients that celebrate multiple holidays, (or for those who forgot to order holiday cards), sending a New Years greeting card can be the perfect choice for keeping in touch during this wintry season! 

One of our most popular New Years themed cards is a holiday calendar card, like the one shown here to the left.  These calendar cards open up tri-fold to display your holiday greeting, along with a calendar of the next year.  This is a great way for your clients to have your company name sitting on their desk or hung on their wall every day of the following year.  The card showing on the left is our brand new Hung on the Tree Calendar Card, which features a deep red background that sits behind a monthly 2011 calendar.  The top panel features a red and gold bulb ornament design which sits in front of a snowflake bordered background.  A list of the year’s most popular holidays also adorns the top of the card.   Your holiday greeting adorns the bottom of the card on the bottom panel. 

Our holiday calendar card collection features a plethora of holiday calendar cards like this one, some with a more generic design which is not so much pertaining to the holiday season, but rather the celebration of the new year.  Some of our newest designs feature wintry tree designs, striking flourish patterns or stately designs with bookplate frames, patriotic themes or seasonal change themes.  Want to celebrate the world while you’re celebrating it’s many holidays?  We also have global and international calendar cards for those with clients from around the globe.

Remember that it’s not too late to put your order in for your New Years holiday cards.  Most of our vendors offer rush processing and upgraded shipping options if you need to receive your order before the Christmas holiday.  Also, be sure to take advantage of our 10% off any order coupon!  Just use the coupon code Jingle2010 at checkout to receive your savings! The promotion ends on December 27th, better hurry!

Okay, all my stressed-out-holiday-procrastinating-readers out there, it’s time to order your digital Christmas photo cards, once and for all!  Believe it or not, there is still time for you to order your holiday photo cards to receive them before Christmas hits.  The greatest thing about digital photo cards is that they are ALWAYS in-stock, so you never have to worry about your favorite design becoming unavailable when you order it.  Digital press means that we print your holiday photo, holiday text and the design of the card all at the same time.  We then cut the card stock to the size shown to you on our website and then they’re ready to be stuffed into their envelopes and mailed!  Digital press is becoming very popular this year, and we have to say it really creates for some great designs that can be printed very quickly.

For IB Designs products, our current processing times are just 2-3 business days + shipping.  Need it faster?  Add rush service to your order and watch it ship the business day after your proof approval.   Need it even faster than rush?  IB Designs also offers a Super Rush service which will allow an order to ship the same day it is placed / approved, as long as it’s before 2:00 PM EST.  We also offer upgraded shipping options for those who live out west or just need their items shipped quicker than UPS Ground shipping times.  Choose from 2nd day air or next day air shipping methods.

When choosing your digital Christmas photo card you have so many options, it may be hard to choose!  Some of our cards have multiple photos, which is helpful for families with multiple children or multiple photographs they want to share.  We also have story photo cards which are great for those who want to combine their annual holiday card and annual holiday letter into one modern holiday greeting card.   For those celebrating the jovial side of the holidays, we have whimsical Christmas photo cards designs with wreaths, Christmas trees, Santa Clause and ornaments.  We also have more reserved or elegant holiday designs with damask patterns, traditional holiday greetings and ornate photo frames.

Don’t forget to take advantage of our Free Ground Shipping promotion which lasts until Friday!  Enter the coupon code FreeShip2010 at checkout to receive your $7.95 discount for Ground shipping.

The holidays are here, and the kids lists to Santa seem to be a mile long this year!  At InvitationBox.com we have a gift shop which is great for holiday shopping for loved ones.  It features collegiate ceramic pottery from your favorite college, baby gifts like bibs, toys, stuffed animals, blankets and soft today’s or personalized gifts engraved or etched with your name or milestone date.  For kids there’s even personalized placemats, stampers and stationery items.

One of the largest adult holiday gift items we’ve seen this holiday season is stationery!  Talk about bringing back an old classic, and one we revolve our business around today.  It truly surprised me this year at the amount of stationery orders we have received for Christmas and holiday gifts.  It’s great that customers are going back to tradition with practicing the art of handwriting a letter or note to a family member or friend.  Our stationery items ship in a very short 2-3 business day time period, thus there’s plenty of time to place your stationery order if you need to receive your order by Christmas.  We offer flat notes for men, folded notes for women and fun colorful note designs for kids.  Our Embossed Graphics stationery is most popular with their affordable embossing and thermography, (raised printing), options.  Choose a notecard with an ornate monogram, embossed company name or a list of your family members with your family names. 

Below are some of the options we have for your stationery holiday gifts…

Stationery not your thing?  Not to worry.  I know sometimes the kids aren’t the happiest with a stationery set from Santa.  I did my research for our parent blog readers out there and found a great top-10 list of the most popular kids gift items for Christmas 2010.  Some of them are quite expensive, I might say, but who can put a price on Santa’s love?

1 – XBOX Kinect
2 – Fisher-Price iXL
3 – NERF N-Strike Stampede ECS Blaster
4 – LEGO Board Games
5 – Sing-A-Ma-Jigs
6 – vTech MobiGo
7 – Imaginext Bigfoot the Monster
8 – Furry Frenzies
9 – Fisher-Price Dance Star Mickey
10 – LEGO Harry Potter

For the full complete list, visit BestToyGuide.com.  This fun website has all of the popular gifts for the holidays 2011 with great descriptions on who the toy will be best for and what the toys do.  Happy Shopping!

Holiday cutoffs are slowly starting to come in, which must mean one thing, the holidays are definitely here!  Now’s your last chance to order the brand new Noteworthy Collections Snap Stamp in-time to receive it for the holidays.  The Snap Stamp is a great holiday gift for your friends, neighbors, co-workers or a business associate.  It gives the gift of personalization and also allows for over 900 choices of stamp faces!  Personalize your first stamp with a fun holiday character and then purchase sports or ornate address stamps for use during the rest of the year.  Simply snap off and on your different faces as you mood or the season changes.  The magnetic technology inside the stamper base allows for an easy face change with no need for adjusting or straightening. 

The snap stamp in the top left corner is a complete package that is perfect for gift-giving.  It allows your recipient to actually choose their own face design and enter their own text.  Your recipient will receive this cute box with a self-inking stamp base inside.  They’ll also receive a coupon code for a free stamp face, (which includes free shipping).  They simply open the box, go to our stamp personalization website to choose their design and then receive their very own face in the mail!  It’s the gift of personalization that makes sure your guest receives the design that THEY would pick for themselves!

Not sure which design works best for you?  Below are some of our favorite Snap Stamp designs below.  There’s a little something for everyone…The cheerleader, the holiday fanatic, the athlete, the family or the student at a university.   These stamp designs work great for formal letterhead, envelope seals, book or belonging markers, Greek rush posters, advertisements and more!

It’s that gift-giving time of year again!  And if you have a child, you know that the bombardment of gifts from family members and friends is well on it’s way…if it hasn’t already started!  One of the things we tend to forget during the holiday sea
son is sending a thank you note for the gifts we receive.  I know that I’m a culprit of this too.  It’s the holidays and whether or not we like to admit it, we automatically assume we are receiving gifts.  But this shouldn’t mean that we lose our tact and neglect to let our family and friends know that we appreciate their kind and generous gift.  Not only is it important for adults to send out thank you notes, but it’s a really nice touch to have your children send thank you notes too.  It’s a great way to instill thank you note writing at an early age so that they continue the tradition as they grow up.

Having your children sit down to write thank you notes can be a daunting task for a parent.  Your child is hyper and doesn’t have the patience to write a long note.  Or maybe they can’t write very well yet.  At InvitationBox.com we offer a line of holiday fill-in thank you notes that is perfect for kids to start practicing writing thank you notes.  The fill-in cards come with pre-printed text and lines for your child to fill in what they received and what they liked about it.  The fill-in text will cut your child’s thank you note writing time down in half, giving you time to move onto bigger and better things!

The fill-in holiday thank you notes come in a variety of fun holiday styles which make it even more fun for your child to fill out.  Some of our favorite designs feature the Daddy and Me Gingerbread Fill-In you see above, our Gingerbread House Fill-in or our whimsical fill-ins which feature cartoon Christmas trees, colorful ornaments or Santa Clause. 

Remember that we also have matching fill-in holiday invitations for some of our holiday fill-in thank you notes.  Make it a matching set with a round sticker envelope seal to really create a fun kids coordinating holiday collection!