Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in Saint Louis, MO

My family may not follow all of the holiday traditions but we always send out Christmas cards to family and friends across the country. This year, we are tried something different with our holiday cards by making our own greeting cards.

Making cards can be simple or very complicated depending on how involved and kid oriented you want the cards to be. When the kids were too young to participate, I made our greeting cards from photos that I took. I uploaded the photos to popular photo sights like snapfish, shutterfly or even walgreens and followed their easy instructions for making photo greeting cards. After adding my photos, I added personalized greetings, borders and backgrounds until they were exactly how I wanted them. Many of the photo sights allow you to zoom or crop photos which is useful if the picture isn't perfect out of the camera. By taking my own photos and creating my own cards, I saved money and didn't have to haul the kids to the photo studio. It is also more cost efficient than buying separate greeting cards, paying for studio photo prints and stuffing the cards.

Now that my children are old enough to help make cards, I using their little hands (literally) for our greetings. I started with half sheets of red or green stiff card stock paper. I dipped the kids' hands in white paint and we stamped the cards with their festive hand prints. We only used two hand prints per card for the small kids and one hand print per card for our oldest son. After the paint dried, I applied scrap booking photo corners and inserted a holiday photo of the kids. To finish, I signed our names and holiday message on the back and stuffed the completed cards in envelopes. The cards were not perfect but they were very cute and unique- no one could confuse them with store bought cards.

Another idea for making home made holiday cards is using holiday stamps with red, green or metallic inked stamp pads. Kids can stamp the cards or envelopes for you. A friend had her children stamp small squares of white paper which she then glued to red and green background paper. The children were involved in the card making process but her greetings were very polished and neat.

If you are set on store bought greeting cards, you can still involve your kids by encouraging them to sign their name to the cards or give them a job such as affixing the stamps or sealing envelopes. I find it easier to wet a small sponge and let the kids moisten the envelopes with the sponge instead of having them lick the envelopes (be careful to squeeze most of the water out of the sponge or your envelopes may end up soggy).

No matter what kind of holiday greetings you are sending out, kids can be involved in the process. Plus, unique, kid-centric cards are more memorable for your friends and family all will probably stay on the fridge longer than a store bought card. By including them in the process, you are creating holiday memories and traditions that will last for years.