Making Greeting Cards: A Guide for Newbies

Making Greeting Cards: A Guide for Newbies

Sending out personalized, handmade or self-designed greeting cards is a way to make your recipients feel special. Creating your own greeting cards isn't as uncommon or challenging as you may think. You don't have to be an artist to make professional-looking cards. All you need is a little information.

It's never too early to begin creating greeting cards; you'll need them when a birthday comes up or a holiday arrives. But before you begin designing professional-looking cards, you should be aware that there are full color (process) cards and spot color cards. Spot color cards use programs that have PMS color pallets. Some examples of programs that have PMS color pallets are Photoshop, InDesign, and Adobe Illustrator. Programs like Microsoft Word have an RGB color palette, and designing with this software may cost extra in the long run due to the need to convert your files to process colors. If the files aren't converted, the colors may come out slightly different than from what you want.

The widespread accessibility to commercial printers now makes it so that large orders of professional-looking greeting cards can be printed with minimal hassle. Smaller orders can be completed by chaining orders together on large offset presses, and digital printing can print quantities from 25 to 250 or more. If you're doing digital printing, make sure to use process colors or CMYK only, as otherwise your final pieces may come out wrong. If you're low on money, it's also important to consider what will be cheapest printing option. If you only want 500 cards, sometimes it's cheaper to buy 500 prints if you buy 1000 and recycle or sell half the finished product.

Many printers have a wide assortment of envelopes you can choose from for your final products, ranging from plain envelopes to specialty envelopes that will fit specially sized cards, such as square ones. Many printers also have templates available that will help you. Envelopes come in all shapes and sizes, but you need to be sure your cards will fit in the envelopes you purchase. Your card should fold no wider than 4"x9" if you use a #10 envelope, for instance.

You can order envelopes with prints on the front or back, or you can even get your return address printed on them. Make sure you leave the recommended margin available for the printer you use, as printers need to hold onto the envelopes while they print.

Do not be afraid of asking for assistance from others. They may have the skills you need to really make your greeting cards a hit among your friends and family.

Free birthday e-greetings are a new and easy way to exchange wishes. And if you're looking for wide varieties of birthday cards online, visit 365greetings. They offer plenty of greeting cards and free printable birthday cards.

by Anne V Walker; Monday, July 18, 2011 @ 07:01 AM [255]

Featured

Luxury Villa Holidays - Delighting You All the Way

There is something about luxury villa holidays that would not let you settle for anything less. Coming to think of it, there can be no substitute for luxury and it should come as no surprise that luxury villa holidays have caught up among the...

[ Continue reading ]