Nobody sends as many greetings cards as they used to, or, at least that’s what we tend to think, as it is so much easier to just post a quick message on Facebook, maybe adding a funny GIF for good measure. However, there are certain occasions when a greetings card is still a must. Can you imagine, for instance, being able to ‘get away’ with just sending a Valentine’s Day message to your beloved on Facebook and skipping the cards and gifts? We can imagine it, we’re just not sure it would be very pretty.
Long before Hallmark and other big card companies came along greetings cards of all kinds were elaborate handcrafted affairs. And perhaps they were a little bit more special, as so much care and thought went into making them. Fortunately you can still do the same today, thanks to inexpensive printers, great cardstock options and predesigned SVG files that allow even non artists to appear to be wonderfully creative.
Interested in making your own greeting cards? Here are some tips and tricks to get you started:
Finding SVG Files
SVG files are versatile image files that are especially well suited to greetings card creation. They are usually pre designed images – or sets of images called design bundles – that are easy to download and print and then manipulate in your favorite design program to create a unique design of your own.
You can find great Valentines SVG Files, pumpkin SVG Files, Christmas SVG Files and much more online and in a wide variety of styles, from vintage to abstract, cartoons, and more.
It used to be that Adobe and its suite of tools were the main choices for working with SVGs, but that has changed over the past few years. They can now even be used in MS Word, as well as well as most graphic design and publishing programs. SVG files are better for creating greetings cards because they can be so seamlessly resized without any loss of quality.
Finding the Right Cardstock
Once you have located those perfect Christmas SVG files, or whatever it was you were looking for, you do have to choose a good cardstock to print your designs on and create your cards.
You can, if you choose, buy pre folded ‘card blanks’ but they tend to be expensive and all too often those folds jam up the average home printer. Standard cardstock, the kind you can find anywhere in office supply stores is fine, and colored cardstock – which you can find at craft stores both on and offline is still a more economical choice than the premade blanks.
Pulling It All Together
Sourcing the best Valentines SVG files, creating your design and printing it out onto good cardstock is really all you need to do to create a basic greetings cards, but for very special cards, why stop there?
Stitching or embroidery cards is perfectly possible is you are patient and careful, as is adding ribbon, glitter and more. Just remember, sometimes less is more, so don’t go too over the top.
Selling Your Handmade Greetings Cards
So, let’s say you’ve got so good at making greetings cards and have received tons of compliments. So many in fact that you’d like to start selling your cards. But what’s the best way to go about doing that?
One of the first things to do is to decide where you are physically going sell your cards. Are you going to sell online with your own store, on a managed platform such as Etsy, or through local businesses and crafts fairs? Word of mouth and selling cards to family and friends will only go so far when it comes to selling cards. Good research will help to determine the opportunities.
There is an increasing number of online craft marketplaces, such as Etsy, Amazon’s Handmade, Artfire, and the many other specialist sites. Selling handmade greetings cards online is a viable proposition for anyone with access to the internet. It can be hard work, but if you products are good, and you take the time to work on creating great listings it could become a profitable sideline, or even perhaps a successful work from home business.
