The best cards are personal ones. And this year we’re making it easy to send all of your holiday and Christmas cards in minutes. That's right, we now do folding greeting cards, sent in top quality envelopes, as well as our beloved postcards.

All you need to think about is the photo to use on your card - here are some ideas we like.

Christmas cat

The internet was made for cats. So what's better than to send a festive feline straight from your mobile or our website? This card uses our 'Nesbo' theme.

Holiday hounds

These two guys are dressed up nice and smart, ready for their pumpkin. Who wouldn't smile when opening this card? This card uses our 'Neon Origami' theme, which also applies a nice warm filter to the photo.

Party time

We love these guys, and I'm pretty sure they loved sending this card! Our 'Chirrup' theme is used here, our little robin speaking the personal message on the front. The theme has also applied a beautiful warm tone to the photo, which really lifted the cold, hard flash from the original photo.

The knitwear

These guys didn't hold back with their Christmas jumpers (nor their festive headgear). The 'bluebird' theme applies a cool, blue filter to the photo, but these guys are nice and warm.

The family - and the dog

Photos are treasured, especially real, printed ones. If, like these guys, you find a nice spot and smile for the camera, you won't go far wrong. A lasting memory of a happy time - and festive dog! (Using our 'Lund' theme, which also softened the light and smoothed the skin tones)

Happy moments

You don't always need snow or Santa hats. This photo is simply a great moment with a brother and sister with our 'Paper Cut' theme applied. It gives the photo a beautiful, nostalgic border and applies a high contrast black and white filter to the photo, creating a timeless, arty image.

These are just some examples of our festive card themes. Which is your favourite?

You can try them all out using our quick card creator now.

When Christmas Day left-overs are finished and the wrapping paper is put away, it’s time for the little ones (and maybe you too) to start thinking about sending some ‘’Thank you’’ cards for all the wonderful presents.

From time to time we use photographs from various sources under the Creative Commons licence. We'd like to acknowledge the people whose photos we've used (and thank them for being such great and generous photographers). Thank you!

• Evil Erin's photostream
• endbradley's photostream
• Tony Armstrong's photostream
• Laris.Sa*'s photostream
• Sam Felder's photostream
• endbradley's photostream
• Zieak’s photostream
• philcampbell's photostream
• Jacob Davies' photostream
• _Shward_'s photostream
• versageek's photostream
• juhansonin's photostream
• snorp's photostream
• mrplough's photostream
• {just jennifer}'s photostream
• dpstyles™'s photostream
• popofatticus' photostream
• The Big Quack's photostream
• anna gutermuth's photostream
• KimberlyZ's photostream
• jenniferlstoddart's photostream
• terren in Virginia's photostream
• Hunter!'s photostream
• vvvracer's photostream
• ciamabue's photostream
• orchidgalore's photostream
• Nieve44/La Luz's photostream
• Duncan~'s photostream
• aussiegall's photostream
• Garuna bor-bor's photostream
• blair_25's photostream
• Scott Hudson **'s photostream
• Anderson Mancini's photostream
• antaean's photostream
• Juliana Coutinho
• kelsey_lovefusionphoto
• Liamfm
• calleecakes
• bonho1962

Have you sent your Christmas cards for 2010?

If not, be quick, there are only six days left! And if you're pressed for time, here's a quick way to make exceptional last-minute Christmas cards using photos.

With Touchnote you can use a photo to make the front of your Christmas card tell a story. The story of my year was dominated by the birth of a baby boy, and now he features on the front of a Christmas card as a reluctant reindeer. The grandma's are going to love this card almost as much as they dote on the baby.

So if you're short of time, remember that photos of babies and children work brilliantly for Christmas cards, as do images of pets, scenery, and families.

Be creative and make people remember the card you send them this Christmas.

With bank holiday coming up in the UK and hopefully more great weather, what a better way to pass time then by hitting the beach and taking some photographs? Beaches present digital camera owners with a number of wonderful opportunities, as they offer beautiful landscape, colours and light.

Here at Touchnote we love beach photography and have numerous images in our gallery that are extremely popular to create personalised cards with. Below are a few tips on how to take great photographs at the beach, so next time you want to create a personalised card you can use your own photo instead.

Find a focus

Many people can feel lost when taking pictures at the beach as while they might capture a beautiful scene they actually have no point of interest and as a result can take pictures that feel empty and boring. When taking a shot look for a point of interest or focal point that will give those looking at your photo a place for their eye to rest. Some typical examples are: footprints in the sand, chipped paint on beach huts or boats, shells on the shore or intersecting blades of dune grass. What is also fun is to look for the little things that tell the story of going to the beach, like shoes at the water's edge, sand castles, sunglasses, sunscreen lotion etc. For best results zoom in closely on your focus point, you can even get down in the sand and stabilise the camera on something to ensure details remain crisp.

Look for some wildlife

The beach is home to many interesting and colourful creatures and shells. Look for starfish and crabs in rock pools, shells in the sand or coastal birds such as gulls.

Capture the movement of the sea

The flow of the sea is a beautiful and tranqiul motion to capture on camera. Set your camera on a tripod and dial in a slow shutter speed, how slow will depend on the brightness of the day, but you could use a polarizer or ND Grad filter to reduce the amount of light entering the lens.

Be creative with post photo production

Why not do a little post photo production and see what impact stripping a photo of color has upon it? There's something about a black and white shot at the beach that completely changes the mood and feel of a shot. It's also a great way to bring to life beach shots taken on dull days as shadows and light will stand out more.

Head to the beach when it doesn't look so inviting

A beach can really come to life on days that everyone avoids it. Stormy seas, threatening and dramatic clouds and wind slowing lifesaver flags all make for atmospheric shots.

So whether sunny or stormy, the beach is a great place to practice and experiment with your photography.

We look forward to seeing some of your own creations next time you create a personalised card. They are particulary good for creating postcards, thank you cards, birthday cards and get well soon cards.

I want to believe is by far one of the most impressive art exhibitions of all time. Chinese-born artist Cai Guo-Qiang the creator, took over the New York's Guggenheim Museum and transformed the building's iconic rotunda with large scale instillations of exploding cars and flying wolves.

When Cai Guo-Qiang was still living in China he began experimenting with gunpowder. He would sprinkle it on fibrous paper then light it to create a drawing with the burned residues. He moved on to produce outdoor explosion events, using fireworks to create spectacles on the ground and in the sky. By now, Cai is an old master of blast art and is known for portraying social and political commentary through his work. He has compared this exhibition to a walk through a scroll of his life and that he wants to depict the contradictions of violence and beauty.

Inopportune: Stage one

The most startling work of the exhibition is Cai's "Inopportune: Stage One," made up of nine cars filled with light tubes that give the impression of being frames from a movie of a car exploding upwards through the central atrium of the museum.

Head On

Other works displayed on the ramp that leads visitors around the museum's rotunda and our personal favourite include "Head On," featuring a stream of 99 wolves that start on the ground and end up flying though the air before crashing into a glass wall.

Inopportune: Stage Two

Cai's "Inopportune: Stage Two," is also fascinating, made up of life-sized tigers pierced with arrows.

Artists such as this do not come along often so if you get the chance to see Cai's work jump on it.

You can see more at: http://www.caiguoqiang.com/shell.php?sid=2

Enjoy!

Here at Touchnote we love photography and try to include as many inspiring photographers work in our image gallery to create personalised cards with. What we also like is street art, our favourite artist being Banksy. Street art can be seen all over our cities in different shapes and forms as artists challenge conventional art by situating their work in non-art contexts. One of the inspiring aspects of these street artists is that they do not aspire to change the definition of an artwork, but rather want you to question the existing environment that they have placed it in. They want their work to communicate with everyday people about socially relevant themes.

The little people project

Slinkachu is a street artist with a very interesting project called the 'Little People Project' which he started in 2006. This involves the remodelling and painting of miniature model train set characters, which are then placed and left on the street in different scenarios. It is both a street art installation project and a photography project. What this artist is trying to communicate is the notion of surprise by attempting to encourage city-dwellers to be more aware of their surroundings. The scenes that are created reflect the loneliness and melancholy that result from living in a big city, as the characters are so small and insignificant to their large bustling surroundings. Most of the little characters are hand painted and remodelled by the artist himself.

A project such as this is not necessarily difficult to create; you just need some imagination and free time. Why not set up and photograph some fun scenarios of your own? You could use the images to send personalised postcards or greeting cards to people for their birthday, wedding or anniversary. You will definitely have the most original card to give!

Also remember to keep an eye out next time you take a walk, you never really know what you could be missing.

See more at http://little-people.blogspot.com/