Review: Greeting Card from Send Out Cards

My mother's birthday is coming up in a few weeks. She is going to be 89 this birthday! I wanted to get a nice card to send to her, since I am not going to be able to drive the 750 miles to spend the day with her. The thing is this. Who really has the time to drive to a store, spend forever trying to pick out the perfect card, have to settle for one that is just 'ok', and then stand in line for another eternity to pay for it. Then I probably would forget that I am out of stamps, have to make another trip to town to get a stamp, finally get it mailed off hopefully in time for her to get it two days late. Well, this is what usually happens anyway!

Not this time! I received the opportunity to try out Send Out Cards for review purposes. I jumped at the chance to both create a special greeting card for Mother, and be able to write a review for a site for you all to try out.



Disclaimer: I did not receive compensation for this review and am not required to write a positive review in order to use their site for sending out a greeting card. I did get to send out one card for free in order to review the site fully. The review and opinions stated in this review are all my own and not influenced in any way by the company!

Their description of their card services:

We all know it’s fun to receive a special greeting card in the mail. But who has time these days to shop for one and then take it to the post office? SendOutCards is the new way to let you use the ease of sending a card via the internet, but create a real card and have it arrive in the U.S. Mail.

My Review:

So first off let me tell you about the site sendoutcards.com. It is an easy to navigate site where you can create personalized cards for many occasions, including multi contact sending lists like for your girl scout troops or a mass family card sending. I found that there are multiple tutorials available to help you, including how to navigate their site, to show you how to set up a campaign, and how to create a video card, just to name a few. I didn't watch all of their tutorials because just watching a couple showed me that they are straight forward, easy to understand and follow tutorials.

After clicking around on their site for awhile, I decided to get started on making a birthday card to send to Mother. I am not a real mushy person, so I looked one that was beautiful, yet simple. I found this one:

picture courtesy of sendoutcards.com

I decided to make a two panel card. The options available to me were: a postcard, a two panel card, a three panel card, and a big card. The 2 and 3 panel cards are a decent 7" x 5", the post card is 6" x 4.25", and the big card is a whopping 11.5" x 8.2". So all are decent sized cards. I just thought that the two panel card would work best for her birthday card.

I customized it by adding personal pictures and a message inside. I took screenshots so that you could see how that works. For adding pictures, it's pretty easy. I just uploaded the pictures I wanted to use, then drag and dropped them onto the template. There are several templates to choose from. I, obviously, used the four pictures on the same panel template. There are many you can choose from, including holiday themed template that include pretty graphics.

Here I added family pics to the first inside panel.

After I added the pictures, I typed out a message on the second panel under the greeting card's message that is printed inside. Then I got to choose some cute elements to add. Here is another screenshot. 

Adding cute elements to the card.

Adding the elements was easy. You just choose from the elements that you can add, drag them to where you want them, then size them by dragging the corners out or in. It really couldn't be easier! I added a little party hat, cake, and (not shown in the picture) a party streamer. I think they add a unique touch to the card. 

Then, when I was done creating the card, I just went forward, adding my return address, her mailing address, and all that normal information. They send out the card for you! I don't have to worry about getting it out on time or having a stamp. How great is that! I could even select a specific date that I wanted the card mailed out on. You can save address or import contacts so that you have them available next time you use the site. Nifty!

Did I mention that you can purchase and send gifts from this site as well? There are sweets, books and cds, and keepsakes that you can send from this site also, all from the comfort of your home. I didn't purchase anything this time around, so I won't go into a lot of detail about that part of the site. I did click around a bit and drool over the brownies and cookies though. Maybe for the upcoming holidays I will come back to this part of the site and do some sending!

The site uses 'points' that you purchase. A post card costs 1 point, a 2 panel card costs 2 points, etc. The points cost anywhere from 49 cents to 99 cents depending on the bundle that you purchase, or you can do a monthly bundle which is the cheapest way. I find that the cost is very reasonable. The points are also used for the gifts. Shipping depends on what you order. If you are someone that sends out a lot of cards and gifts for birthdays and holidays, I would suggest getting the Preferred Customer option that gives you 100 bonus points a month. The unused bonus points, if you have any left, are good for 12 months. So I think that is a terrific deal. 

So overall, I really thought that this was a great site. The prices are reasonable. The site is easy to use. There are many cards to choose from for a lot of different events and occasion. There are Spanish and French language cards available. The prices, to me as a penny pincher at least, seemed reasonable. And you get the added bonus of never having to worry again about having to make it to the post office to buy a stamp before they close!

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.