What are your favorite sites for cheap photo books? holiday cards?

[CloserToFree]

With the holidays approaching, I'm hoping to put together one or two small photo albums/ photo books for gifts for close family members.  I've been happy with Shutterfly in the past, and also splurged once on a fancy album from Montage ($$$...face punching commence), but am wondering if others have leads on other sites that are still decent quality but cheaper?  Same question for holiday cards - not quite ready to move to e-cards, which I know would be the more frugal choice, but also don't want to spend hundreds like we've done in past years (face punching resume).  Anyone have inexpensive ideas to share?  Many thanks!

[okits]

I really like Shutterfly, so I keep an eye out for deals (recently they had a free calendar promo, pay only shipping), and with a toddler in diapers I collect the diaper companies' loyalty points so the companies (without having to redeem any points) occasionally send me Shutterfly codes.  This Christmas, 24 photo cards with upgraded envelopes = $4.20 total, and 7 ornament cards = $1.40 total. 

There are less expensive Canadian companies around for cards and photo books, but I'll pay more for Shutterfly because their quality and designs just seem so much better.

I decided this year that family get mailed cards, as do any friends over the age of 65.  Friends younger than that get e-mailed a scanned version of the card. I realized that our younger friends don't care much (or at all) about physical cards (few ever mention that they've received it, and almost none send them out), so an e-mailed greeting is sufficient (and much more economical.)  Maybe a similar paring down of your card list is possible?

[muckety_muck]

We used Blurb several years ago ($$$$) but such nice quality.

Have used shutterfly many times, and all except one time it turned out great. The one time it wasn't good, the color was totally off (very dark), they fixed it and express shipped it out to me, no charge. Great customer service.

[tardis]

Check out your local printers.  Some will be more, but sometimes you will be surprised and find a cheaper option.

Holiday cards- buy them the day after the event and save until next year.

[okits]

Speaking of Shutterfly: current promo is 10 free cards (you pay shipping.)  I imagine shipping within the U.S. is much more reasonable (it's $10/10 cards to ship to Canada, pretty bananas!)

[turtleguy150]

You could also try Nations Photo Lab. They have some Black Friday-ish deals going on right now and the albums are discounted quite a bit.

A friend of mine had a wedding album printed and they did a great job. I just had a few small prints (4 X 6 I think) for less than $1/piece (another sale) and they look quite nice.

[justajane]

My husband waits for Shutterfly deals for the photo books, but for holiday photo cards, Costco's price can't be beat. It's like 50 big holiday cards with thick envelopes for $15. They might have cheap photo books too. I haven't checked. Of course this only works if you have a membership, so YMMV.

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

Instead of brand loyalty, shop around for photo books. They can often be found on special sales.

Frugal Girl has some nice tips for putting together good photo books, BTW.

[CloserToFree]

Thanks so much, everyone!  Really appreciate the tips.  I ended up going with a combination of coupon codes on Shutterfly that amounted to about 50% off (see various codes here https://www.shutterfly.com/special-offers -- unfortunately you can't combine a lot of them but the 10 free cards one and one of the Cyber Monday codes worked together -- those deals are still going on until tomorrow, I think).  I went with one of the less expensive (but still really nice) holiday card layouts (about $1 per card after discount), and also made a 20-page soft-cover photo book as a Christmas gift for someone for about $13.  I'm going to monitor new deals and coupon codes throughout December so I can jump on any one-off deals like "free calendar" or "5 free 5x7 prints" -- we generally only do gifts for the kiddos in my family (makes Christmas MUCH less stressful and expensive) but love giving small photo gifts to the grandparents and other close family members, so if it can happen on the cheap, then great :)  If I find any really great deals worth sharing, I'll re-post as a reply to this thread.

Am definitely going to investigate whether it's worth it to buy a Costco membership for 2016 -- that holiday card deal sounds almost worth it on its own.  Thanks!