Trimming my address book on Shutterfly

I use Shutterfly for my family photo holiday cards each year. 

Starting November 2024, I used Shutterfly’s free service to print mailing addresses on the envelopes for me. I had the envelopes printed with our return address too. 

Youngest helped me with this project when I was at her house Thanksgiving week. We cut a dozen or more names off our list at that time.

As other people’s cards arrived in our mailbox, November 2024 - January 2025, I paid attention to the senders. 

We received more cards this year than previous years. They were better quality cards this year. Most had pictures and information. There were very few store bought cards with just a signature. 

I deleted at least a half dozen additional people off my Shutterfly address book in February 2025, while it was all fresh in my mind. 

Why February? I had one of our holiday cards from November 2024, show up in my mail box on February 7, 2025. It was marked as “no longer at this address”.

So some of my deletes were our cards that came back, people had moved, I have not heard from them, so I don’t have a new address. 

Other deletes were people that we no longer hear from, have slipped away. 

When I did the first holiday card mailing in 2020, I cast a wide net. I sent to people we had not contacted in a long time. Five years later, 2025, it felt like it was time to cull that list.

So I now have a very up to date address book online at Shutterfly. I will be in good shape to order pre addressed holiday cards November 2025. 

Shutterfly policy change

 I received an email from Shutterfly, last week, warning me of an important policy change. 

This is very major for me. Shutterfly is one of my backup photo storage places. 

Instead of getting irritated, I did my photo holiday card from start to finish on that Friday. And my plan is to order from Shutterfly every year, so I have an automatic order every 12 months. 

I ordered 120 custom 5”x7” cards with envelopes with free shipping. They should arrive today.

I think, this is the least I have spent for the most amount of cards. 

I did not special order rounded corners. I did not special order photo/print on the back. I did not special order off white stock/envelopes.

Having a total of four photos and very limited text on the front was helpful. I had to edit my text very tightly to convey our year in about 105 total words, including greeting and signature. 

I embraced the editing challenge and am very pleased with the card order. 

The computer room clean out

Nearly two years (2020-2021) of my husband working at home, and my mother bringing all her photos to my house (2019), and the stacked boxes from my husband’s old office clean out (2017) cumulated in a very big mess. 

If you look at that picture and wonder how the counter can handle the weight, it could not. One of the support brackets broke in half. 

A handyman installed a temporary support post. 

I ordered a four drawer cabinet for storage and to support the counter. I ordered the cabinets (Lowe’s) at the end of January, they arrived mid April. 

Those cabinets are my limit now. 7 years of tax binders/my genealogy binders not included, all the papers/files in the house must now fit in these four drawers. 

This is where we are today, very pleasant workspace, I am in there daily now -

The steps in this process included:

- shipping about 36 packages of photos to other people

- getting rid of 2 old file cabinets on wheels

- installing a 4 drawer storage unit for counter support 

- shredding an enormous volume of old papers 

- limiting papers to what fits in the 4 new file drawers

- repairing the broken support

- cleaning out every cupboard and cubby

- removing all the extraneous stuff from the floor 

- removing as much as possible from the counter

- rearranging the printer/PC work stations 

The green basket by the backdoor

This green basket is actually part of a focused paper/files clean out. I am on the lookout around the whole house for extra papers. The plan is to have every household paper/file in our four file drawers. 

Here we go, a spot that was overflowing with papers and  just itching for a sorting - 

Yes, it is a wonder it was still hanging on the wall. 

Much nicer now. 

What stayed: my epipens, garage door opener for my dog neighbor’s house (incase her keypad fails), spring seeds, small amount of emergency cash, gift certificates. 

A couple extra garage door openers went in the hen basket in the credenza. I rehomed a couple things. I listed several things for sale. Things went in recycling and the garbage.   Only about six things moved to their proper files in the house drawer in the filing cabinet. Many things were shredded. 

The whole operation took about 20 minutes. This was done on a very quiet day and made my afternoon feel quite productive. 

PS - I have found a lot of gift cards and gift certificates as I have sorted. If they are somewhere I go regularly, I put them in my crossbody. If they are places the girls go, I give them to them. If they are “future” places, like the greenhouse where I will buy flowers next spring, I put them in this basket. Other future places were the car wash, the bird food store, and a nursery. 

A public service announcement about standard size envelopes

First, let me announce, I am now up to 28 photo packages mailed. Each one is very exciting.

I have been using the kiosk at the post office, after hours, for almost all my mailing needs for the last couple years. I have mailed a lot of things since March 2020.  

Several Saturdays ago, I had two packages to mail that needed checked out by a clerk. I had a box going to Sweden which required a customs form. I had a box going book rate to a library (yearbook donation post coming soon). I could not do either of those at the kiosk. 

That day, I had three envelopes going also. These 3 were envelopes I normally would do at the kiosk, but since I was going IN anyway, I took them all to the counter. One was half size manilla filled with photos, one was a greeting card size full of photos, and one was an empty square notecard in a square envelope. 

I put a stamp on the square one, at home, because it was not heavy. 

When I got to the counter at the post office I commented one already had the postage and the rest needed weighed/calculated. 

The post office clerk said the square one needed more postage because it was square. Evidently, square, regardless of the size, must be hand sorted, they get caught/destroyed in the machine/reader/sorter.

So I paid for 30 cents more postage on the square one. He processed the rest of my things. 

I went home and collected all my square envelopes and gave them to a friend who uses them for scrapbooking. 

Very interestingly, later that same day I was at a bookstore, having them buy back old computer games, and I browsed in the close-out notecard section while I waited. A shocking number of the close out notecards were undersized and/or square. (I found cute notecards, 3.5”x5”, and got them for youngest with my store credit. I try to use store credit immediately.)

I am sure I have used square envelopes in the past, with no extra postage, and now I wonder if they ever made it to their destinations.