Holiday Inspiration Boards

The holiday shopping season is just revving up and I'm super excited to have a collection of holiday cards and products for sale at Minted.com this year! So, to get you in the Christmas spirit, I made inspiration boards, featuring a few of my non-photo holiday designs, Pine and Berry, Merry and Gold and Elegant Wreath. Feel free to give my boards a like or, even better, just pin them! ;) Be sure to check out the rest of Minted’s holiday card collection and gift shop.

Rose Gold, Pine and Berry board by Hooray Creative. See more Minted

Red and Gold Holiday board by Hooray Creative. See more www.minted.com

Elegant Wreath board by Hooray Creative. See more holiday cards on Minted

See more inspiration boards I made, specifically for Minted holiday cards and wedding invitations on my Pinterest board!

Holiday Ornament Card Challenge

It's Christmas in July over here in my little corner of the stationery world! I whipped up a small bunch of holiday ornament cards (photo and non-photo) for Minted's latest design challenge. Voting is now open for this contest and I could use your help! Start rating my designs on the challenge page or click on the links below. Customers, fans and designers all vote in the challenge and by participating, you too can help Minted decide what to sell in their 2014 holiday assortment. So, check out my work, vote and please rate some of the other designs in the competition as well. Thanks! :)

Vintage Swirl by hooray creative

Pine Branch Pattern by hooray creative

Bold Peace Love Joy by hooray creative

Deco Frame by hooray creative

Our First Noel by hooray creative

First Snow by hooray creative

Two Become One by hooray creative

Double Merry by hooray creative

Winter Wash by hooray creative

Golden Wreath by hooray creative

Holiday Stripes by hooray creative

Be Joyful by hooray creative

Brushed Peace Love Joy by hooray creative

 4 Corners by hooray creative

Non-photo Holiday Card Entries

I entered several designs into Minted's Good Tidings Non-photo Holiday Card Challenge! There's still time to vote on entries and help the folks over at Minted decide what to include in this year's holiday card assortment. Check out my designs below or get voting on this challenge page right here. As always, thanks for checking out my work! :)

Merry and Gold

Wonderful Time of Year

Pine and Berry

Elegant Wreath

Flurries

Holly Berry Joy

Corporate Holiday Card Entries

I entered a few designs into Minted's Office Wonderland Corporate Holiday Card Challenge. Take a look at my submissions! :)

Winter Dip Dye business holiday card by Hooray Creative

Happy Infographic business holiday card by Hooray Creative

Confetti Welcome business holiday card by Hooray Creative

Retro Snow business holiday card by Hooray Creative

Elegant Garland business holiday card by Hooray Creative

Hello 2015 business holiday card by Hooray Creative

Vintage Bottle Cap business holiday card by Hooray Creative

Minted Holiday Challenge 2014

Minted's highly-anticipated holiday photo card challenge is here! Every year, Minted hosts a mammoth competition in search of the best and freshest holiday photo card designs. Independent designers participate from all over the world. There are an astounding 4108 entries this year! So, yes, the stakes are high!! I submitted 31 designs this year. It was a bit of a mad dash to the finish line since I was really pressed for time, but hopefully I've got a winner in here somewhere. ;) Of course, you can help improve my chances by taking a few minutes to vote on my entries! Voting is open until Tuesday, May 27th at 9am and my designs can be found at the image links below or look for Hooray Creative starting on this page, right here. You can rate designs on a scale of 1-5 and Minted sells many of the high-scoring designs. Be sure to vote on at least 50 designs to qualify for $10 off your next $100+ Minted order. Thank you all so much! :)

Very Merry Flourish holiday photo card by hooray creative

Seasonal Frame holiday photo card by hooray creative

Minimal Gallery holiday photo card by hooray creative

Very Merry Type holiday photo card by hooray creative

Painted Pine Frame holiday photo card by hooray creative

Happy Everything! holiday photo card by hooray creative

Be Merry Script holiday photo card by hooray creative

Best Ever. holiday photo card by hooray creative

Oh, Hello 2015 new year photo card by hooray creative

preppy peacejoylove holiday photo card by hooray creativ

Mostly Merry! holiday photo card by hooray creative

Married and Merry holiday photo card by hooray creative

Festive Floral holiday photo card by hooray creative

Triple Warm Wishes holiday photo card by hooray creative

Holiday Flurries holiday photo card by hooray creative

Peace Tree holiday photo card by hooray creative

Botanical Joy holiday photo card by hooray creative

Naughty or Nice? holiday photo card by hooray creative

Snowy and Bright holiday photo card by hooray creative

Feliz Navidad! holiday photo card by hooray creative

Confetti Chic holiday photo card by hooray creative

Making Spirits Bright! holiday photo card by hooray creative

The Biggest Joy holiday photo card by hooray creative

Candy Cane Stripes holiday photo card by hooray creative

Photo Wall holiday photo card by hooray creative

Joyful Stamp holiday photo card by hooray creative

Christmas Gram holiday photo card by hooray creative

Believe in the Season holiday photo card by hooray creative

Kraft and Cane holiday photo card by hooray creative

Very Merry Christmas holiday photo card by hooray creative

Bright Holiday holiday photo card by hooray creative

Happy Love Day

Happy Valentine's Day!  Just wanted to share a quick peek at the card I designed and mailed out to friends and family. I had lots of fun with type and lettering with this design and printed a batch of these on double thick cotton stock.

XOXO, Kristy

Free Printable Kids Valentines

Valentine's day is just around the corner! If you have yet to pick up valentine cards for your kids to hand out in school, then you're in luck because I'm sharing a new free printable! These cute classroom valentines were a mini-collaboration and labor of love between me and my honey.  My boyfriend draws and does "cute" better than I, so he was happy to sketch out these adorable robots. I  added color, texture and type to make these sweet cards. Great for both robot-loving boys and girls. Enjoy!

Designed with love by Hooray Creative. FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY.

DOWNLOAD PRINTABLE VALENTINES

Print on 8.5" x 11" high-quality paper. I used 100% white cotton stock that I had from Paper Source, which I fed through my inkjet printer on a borderless page setting. However, I also tried matte photo paper and some nice cream-colored watercolor paper, both of which worked great too. Trim with paper cutter or exacto knife, vertically and horizontally through the center. The trimmed cards measure 4.25" x 5.5".

New Years Cards

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! It's not too late to order a new calendar for 2014 and if you want something extra special, I definitely recommend Minted's customizable photo calendars. I have 1 design for sale and it's available in 2 sizes (the standard retails for $29 & the grand is $39). I've order a Minted calendar for myself before and can vouch for the excellent quality. The paper is thick and luxurious and you can customize each calendar month with your own photos and text.

  Watercolor Brush Standard  and  Grand Calendars by Hooray Creative at minted.com

Also, I don't know about you, but the holiday season flew by for me this year! With so much to do in December, it can be tough to buy holiday cards well enough in advance to actually mail out in time for Christmas. If you procrastinated or missed out, you can still send a New Year's card! I have a few for sale on Minted.

Gilded Year in Review Minibook Card by Hooray Creative for Minted.com

Happy New Year card by Hooray Creative for Minted.com

Stacked New Year's Card by Hooray Creative for Minted.com

Noisemakers New Year's Cards by Hooray Creative for minted.com

Art Deco New Year's Card by Hooray Creative at Minted.com

Hand Drawn Holiday New Year's Card by Hooray Creative at minted.com

Ombre Sparkle New Year's Card by Hooray Creative at minted.com 

Or consider this: in lieu of your typical holiday or new year's cards, you could send a personalized Valentine's photo card! Valentine Cards are becoming more and more popular for those who just don't have time to get their family photos taken in advance or their Christmas cards ordered on time.

Bold XOXO Valentine's Photo Card by Hooray Creative at Minted.com

Merry Christmas!

I really, really enjoyed my holiday card exchange this year and have received soooo many beautiful cards from fellow Minted designers. I thought I'd share the Christmas card I designed and sent to friends and family for anyone who missed out on the mailing.

This was printed at Minted, using their curved frame die-cut shape on signature stock. I also ordered the white envelopes, gold foil liners and took advantage of Minted's free recipient address printing!

The back of the card included a cute little illustration I made since I didn't manage any family photos this year. You can also see below that I went a little crazier than usual with the envelope decorating, but it was fun to add some extra special touches.

As much as I love designing holiday cards and other lovely paper products, I'm also a musician...primarily a singer these days. In the spirit of the season, I made a little video for your listening pleasure. Here's my version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", first made famous by Judy Garland. It's one of my favorites! Guitar accompaniment by my musical partner in crime, Steve.

p.s. Sorry the video quality is so dark and lousy. We didn't light it well and ran out of time for more takes. Hopefully, we'll nail it next time!

Christmas Inspiration

Christmas is my favorite holiday so today I wanted to share a little eye candy. I made inspiration boards for Minted featuring 2 of my holiday cards. You can purchase both designs, Ribbon Happy and Ombre Sparkle, at Minted. ;) And if you're a little behind on your Christmas cards, I recommend sending a New Year's Card! Happy Holidays!!

Ribbon Wrapped Christmas board by Hooray Creative. See more holiday cards

Pink Ombre Sparkle board by Hooray Creative. See more photo Christmas cards

Personalized Wrapping Paper

Last chance to get your gift wrap in time for Christmas! I have several new wrapping paper designs available for sale on Minted. Every design is printed on luxe matte paper and includes customizable names, photos and/or unique messages. Sold as a set of 5 sheets; each sheet is 20" x 28".  Also available – matching gift tags, stickers and multiple colorway options. Make your gift-giving extra special this season!

Festive Floral personalized wrapping paper by Hooray Creative

Holiday Icons personalized wrapping paper by Hooray Creative

Blue Spruce personalized wrapping paper by Hooray Creative

Modern Garland personalized wrapping paper by Hooray Creative

Snowflake and Stamp personalized wrapping paper by Hooray Creative

Holiday Line Art personalized wrapping paper by Hooray Creative

Cityscape personalized wrapping paper by Hooray Creative

Minted Holiday Design Roundup

I feature my own work on here all the time, but there are many other designers' whose work I truly admire. Today, I wanted to share some inspiration and a few of my favorite holiday cards and gifts from Minted and the talented designers behind these fabulous products.

NEW Foil Pressed Holiday Cards I am completely in love with anything shiny and metallic and Minted's new foil-pressed holiday cards are gorgeous! The entire assortment looks beautiful, and I've rounded up a few of my favorites, but you can shop the rest of the collection here.

I love this awesome design, Modern Pine, by Oscar & Emma. Perfect for those who might want to skip the family photo on their cards this year. Loosely drawn branches and berries and a bright fuchsia and chartreuse color palette with real silver foil – this one is begging to be my Christmas card!

This exquisite multiphoto holiday card, was created by designer, Kelli Hall. The gold foil design elements in Dazzling Glitter are super chic and the clean layout and white space allow your photos to shine.

If  you're looking for a full-bleed photo design to really show off a stunning photo, I adore All Aglow by Olivia Kanaley. Her hand painted Merry is beautifully simple but still makes such an impact in glitzy gold foil.

Alethea and Ruth does bold, quirky hand lettering just right. I love the whimsical vibe in Merry Typography, and the lettering looks soooo lovely in foil. Love the mint colorway too.

...and a couple more I love! Joyfully Modern by Paper Dahlia and Sophisticated Snow by Pistols

NEW Personalizable Wrapping Paper Minted has lots of great new products and options to satisfy holiday shoppers this year and I'm excited about their new customizable gift wrap! With lots of photo and non-photo designs to choose from, you can make your gift-giving extra special this season. They have cute designs for the kiddos and more sophisticated personalizable designs for the grown-up gift exchanges too. Also for available for sale – matching gift tags and stickers!

NEW Holiday Ornament Cards The new Minted ornament cards come in 3 different die-cut shapes with a luxe linen ribbon. I love that these cards can double as a keepsake and even be hung on the Christmas tree.

Honestly , I could go on and on about all the fab products on Minted and the great work from my fellow designers. Not only does Minted have a fantastic selection of holiday cards, but they also have lots of great gifts (ie. art prints, calendars, notebooks, personal stationery) and party decor for your holiday soirees. Head over to Minted now and get your shop on. Happy Holidays!!

Zazzle Holiday Cards

If you haven't done so already, NOW is the time to buy your Holiday, Christmas and New Years cards! The other day I posted a feature on my 2013 holiday collection, exclusively available at Minted.com. Feel free to take another look at my Minted designs. However, if you can't find a design you like on Minted, I have many more holiday cards and party invitations for sale on Zazzle. Check out just a few of the options below and get your holiday shopping underway.

Black Friday Cyber Monday

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! After the turkey feast and pumpkin pie, the holiday shopping season will officially kick into high gear! I have been thinking about Christmas since last March, having designed a big batch of holiday products for Minted (and a few other sites). Now, I'm super excited to share my work just in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Today's post features my Holiday and Christmas card collection, exclusively available for sale at Minted.com! I will also be making daily posts for the next couple of weeks so stay tuned for holiday inspiration, gift guides and of course, more Hooray Creative designs (or like my fb page for updates).

And here are your Minted promotions!

11/27 Wednesday–11/29 Friday: 15% off $100 and 20% off $150+ on holiday cards 12/2 Monday: 15% off + Free Shipping on holiday cards and 25% off everything else

Featured Holiday and Christmas Cards by Hooray Creative (click on any image to purchase)

The rest of the collection!

NEW Christmas Ornament Cards

Cityscape Series Non-Photo Corporate Holiday Cards

Available cities include New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, Los Angeles

NEW Foil Pressed Cards

Please note that each card is fully customizable and is available in different color options. I have also made coordinating pattern backers, labels and envelope liners for each design and Minted offers lot of extra bells and whistles, such as die-cut shapes, luxe triple thick paper, glitter liners and much more.

Minted also carries many other products including limited edition and customizable art prints, party decor, wedding invitations, save the dates, birth announcements, wrapping paper, personal stationery, journals, calendars, etc, etc, etc. Now, let the shopping commence! And please feel free to buy some of my stuff. ;) No pressure – haha!

Thank you so much for stopping by! Happy Holidays!!

Holiday Ornament Card Featured

Woohoo! One of my new holiday ornament cards is currently featured on the homepage of Minted.com and was recently spotted in a Minted marketing email as well. Check out the rest of the holiday ornament card assortment here. They're super cute! I plan to send these out for Christmas myself. :)

Holiday Gift Wrap Winners

Some good news this week! I had 2 winners (6th and 12th place!) and 4 editor's picks in Minted's Outside the Box Holiday Gift Wrap challenge. Minted will be launching it's inaugural collection of unique, personalizable gift wrap for the upcoming 2013 holiday shopping season and I'm so pleased to be included! My 6th place design scored a rating of 4.0267, which is a personal best for me. Hooray! I'm also celebrating another little milestone with this challenge – I have finally reached a total of 55 Minted awards. I've been trying to crack 50 for awhile now, so these gift wrap wins were extra rewarding. :) See the rest of the winners from the gift wrap challenge here.  Some great stuff in there. I personally can't wait to buy some wrapping paper!

Left to Right: Festive Floral, Holiday Icons, Blue Spruce Holiday Gift Wrap

Left to Right: Modern Garland, Snowflake and Stamp, Holiday Line Art Holiday Gift Wrap

Halloween Party Invite

Fall is my favorite season and I don't know about you, but I love Halloween! Monster bashes, The Great Pumpkin, homemade costumes, tricks and treats!!! Since this is truly one of my favorite holidays, I really enjoyed designing these Halloween-themed party invitations. So if you're planning to a throw a spooky soiree next month, might I suggest you pick up my party invitations? – available exclusively on minted.com ;) It comes in 4 color options, which I named Purple People Eater, Pumpkin, Black Magic and Green Goblin. Colorway names have never been so fun and creepy!

Spooky Soiree Halloween party invite by Hooray Creative on minted.com

Minted Holiday Card Winners

I received exciting news this week!!!!!! 2 of my designs in Minted's "Oh What Fun" Holiday Card Challenge placed in the Top 40 out of 3348 entries! Minted's annual holiday card challenge is very competitive and many talented designers enter, so I am extremely honored to be in the winner's circle this year. Thank you so much to everyone who voted, liked and/or commented on any of my holiday designs. I am forever grateful for your support!

12th place: Most Wonderful available at minted.com

25th place: Ribbon Happy available at minted.com

1 Merry Always 2 Stacked Christmas 3 Happiest Holidays 4 Making Spirits Bright 5 Merry and Married 6 Be Joyful

All 6 of these designs are or will be available for sale on minted.com very soon!

Congrats to all the winners in this challenge! See the Top 10 or check out all 3348 submissions! Also, see my 12th and 25th place designs in Minted's blog posts detailing the Top 11 - 20 winners and the Top 21 - 40 winners.  Hoping I can be lucky enough to crack the top 10 next year!!

FYI: My Rustic Joy holiday photo card, that won 11th place last year (see blog post), is now available for sale in my Zazzle shop, right here.

Holiday Wrapping Paper Entries

Minted is launching their first-ever personalizable holiday wrapping paper collection. They asked the Minted design community to come up with modern, unique, personalizable gift wrap designs that should include photos and/or custom text. I entered 11 designs into Minted's Outside the Box Holiday Gift Wrap Challenge, though the first one displayed in this post is my favorite! Voting is now open. To rate my designs, click on the image links below or look for Hooray Creative right here. Thanks for checking out my work!!!

Festive Floral customizable gift wrap by Hooray Creative for minted.com

Blue Spruce customizable gift wrap by Hooray Creative for minted.com

Holiday Mashup customizable gift wrap by Hooray Creative for minted.com

Snowflake and Stamp customizable gift wrap by Hooray Creative for minted.com

Candy Cane Stripes customizable gift wrap by Hooray Creative for minted.com

Holiday Icons customizable gift wrap by Hooray Creative for minted.com

Holiday Line Art customizable gift wrap by Hooray Creative for minted.com

Rustic Joy customizable gift wrap by Hooray Creative for minted.com

Modern Garland customizable gift wrap by Hooray Creative for minted.com

Candy Cane Ribbon customizable gift wrap by Hooray Creative for minted.com

Hanukkah Stripes customizable gift wrap by Hooray Creative for minted.com

Holiday Minibook Winners

Minted recently announced the winners and editor's picks from their Quickfire Holiday Minibook Card Challenge. I am super excited to have 2 of my designs (Painted Pine and Gilded Year in Review in the Top 20 and 1 additional Editor's Pick (Pine and Flurry). There were some fabulous designs in this challenge so I am thrilled to be a winner among such a talented bunch. All 3 of my minibooks will be included in Minted's holiday card collection for 2013. See the chosen designs below:

Also, definitely check out the special prize winners on Minted's design blog, "Julep" right here! Congrats to all the winners!