Sending greeting cards to loved ones and
friends on special occasions like Birthdays, holidays and anniversaries can
give you great satisfaction and the receiver gets the great feeling that not
only did you remember but you also took the time to send them a greeting card.
What could be better that that, well how
about making that greeting card your self? Now before you start to put up all
kinds of reasons why you could not make a greeting card stop. There are many
ways to make greeting cards that are unique from you too the receiver, from
embellishing bought greeting cards to making them from scratch.
Now you may have to learn new skills or
adapt old ones, the thing is to play to your strengths and to slowly move out
of your comfort zone and not jump right out of it. You can embellish existing
greeting cards by following my earlier post at Hand made Greeting cards The next step up from this is to buy a greeting card kit. You can buy greeting
card kits from many good craft stores or on line from the likes of Crafts U Print.
The kits that you get from craft stores of shows might have a better finish
with thicker card stock, gloss finish and metallic inks but if you make a
mistake you might have to buy another kit. On the other hand the kits that you
download from sites likeCrafts U Print you can print out over and over again which
makes them cost effective when making greeting cards for holidays like
Christmas. You can also experiment printing the greeting card kit onto
different paper, card or even photo paper for that gloss effect.
Warning; from here on out it can get very
addictive! You will soon find that you are mixing and matching from different
greeting card kits and from here it is only a small step before you are making
your greeting cards from scratch.
You can take the elements and colour them
and combine them on your computer making a greeting card ready to be printed
straight onto a card blank or just plain card that you then cut to size. Or you
could print out all the elements and colour and construct them by hand on your
kitchen table or a combination of both. Each way has its own merits and
difficulties, please keep in mind that methods that other people use to get
results that they like mean nothing unless you can repeat the method and it
gives you the result you want, by all means try new methods and if it works for
you then great, if not let it go.
You can spend a small fortune on card
making equipment and supplies if you are not careful which can make you think
twice about the claims that many websites say that they can save you money by
creating your own greeting cards! In pure money terms you are probably better
off buying your greeting cards in a job lot from a discount where house for the
next ten years and do not forget to post the cards off early so that you only
pay second class postage.
Making your own greeting cards is so much
more that saving a dollar or two, it is about unleashing your creativity and
putting love into the greeting cards that you send. Your loved ones and friends
will know that you have put in time and effort to make their greeting card or
will think that you have spent a lot of money on a unique hand crafted greeting
card.
Many of the tools and supplies that you
will need you may already have, epically if you have children, which by the way
card making is a great activity you can do with them. Even if you do not have
children shopping in the children’s section of a supermarket will get you six
big tubes of different colour glitter glue for less than the cost of one small
tube at a craft store. Sure the quality is less but till you have to have used
both you will not know that. When you are just starting out keep the cost low
till you know that this is what you like, after all most of the tools only make
one particular job easy, it could sit in your tool box for years.
Below are links to sites where you can get
the tools and elements you need to make greeting cards, they range from free to
hundreds of dollars, I do not recommend one over another, after all what works
for me might not work for you.
Computer programs to help you make greeting
cars on your computer;
Sites where you can get information on
making greeting cards and greeting card kits and tools, some of which may ask
you for your email so that you can get the free stuff.
Here are some sites where you can get free
elements to use in making greeting cards for your personal use.
Now you may think that this is all too much
trouble and you would rather just pick a greeting card and order it, well that
is fine and if you are looking for a greeting card that you may not find on the
high street then have a look at;
And if they do not have what you want you
can always ask the artist at Hreeting Card Universe greeting card universe to make the card you want.
Sometimes making greeting cards for your
loved ones and friends is all the gratification you need but sometimes your
output is greater than the needs of your close ones. It would be nice if you
could reduce the cost of your past time, better still if you could make a
profit! Over the next couple of blog posts I will talk you through making money
from your greeting card making, both hand made and digital.
Disclaimer, some of the links but not all
in this blog I make money from if you click on them or purchase from the
website, after all I need to feed my family.
