Making your own greeting cards

[clockdoc]

Hi all,
I am trying to set up my 16 year old great-niece, who I have been mentoring in photography for several years, with a work flow to produce her own greeting cards from her stock photography. A friend at church, who is an artist, started out by making paintings of "faceless' angels. This led to creating prints and eventually greeting cards. They were kind enough to share some tips as to how they got started. At one time they had 4 Canon printers going to make her own greeting cards and eventually wore out the print heads. Now they have them made through a commercial offset printer. Here is the website if you are interested: www.myangelfriends.com

What I have started with is an 8.5 X 11 inch paper that I formatted in Photoshop to print two 5.5 X 8.5 images that each fold in half to make a 4.25 X 5.5 inch card. Note my learning curve that shows white at the top of the green leaf card as well as some skinny white borders on others (before I learned to check the 'borderless' box in the printer setup). I tried Office Depot's glossy finish 9 mil paper as it has no maker's logo on the back (which becomes the inside of the folded card). Unfortunately, the surface is a bit slick and while I eventually found a marking pen that can be used to write a message, I would prefer to have a paper than can be written on with a common ball-point pen.

I then moved to an Avery card stock, #8577, that has a matte finish and is scored to make four 4.25 X 5.5 cards. I printed a 'duo' of cards as before and split the sheet in half making two separate cards. Since the stock is scored, it was much easier to fold than with the 9 mil glossy print paper. I would imagine though that too many openings and closing may eventually cause the card to separate at the fold as the paper is designed to be cut into 4 cards.

The matte paper doesn't give the quality of a glossy finish and not all of my great-niece's photos look as good on the matte stock. The butterfly image at the far left is on the matte card stock. I have included the commercially produced "angel" card from my friend for comparison as to size. I'd appreciate any suggestions/recommendations you may have. Here are a couple of images to show what I have been working on.


The "Angel" card is in front to show size comparison with the commercially produced card.


The card flat on the table is a draft printed on plain paper. The two "blue" images partially cut off to the right are on the matte stock as is "butterfly" far left and front. All the rest are on glossy paper

[Nicole]

They look good I can see your learning curve.

What I've used on my cards is a pre-creased cardstock that is sold flat in packs of 20 cards I believe. The card stock is also textured, which I found looked better than the flat matte paper because it at least gave it some texture then. I printed a few on the plain matte because the store ran out of the textured paper and I was a few Christmas cards short

I also learned that if you make the picture a little larger so it goes just over the fold and slightly on to the back it actually works a little better (though this advice might not work because your cards are scored instead of folded).

Have you tried looking for paper that's matte on one side and glossy on the other? It appears that Ilford may make some like that. At least then you should be able to write on the inside of the card in normal pen. And if it were plain paper you could just score the fold yourself using a plastic tool I would think, but that introduces a new set of steps to both cut and fold the cards yourself, which may not be desirable if your great-niece is making a lot of cards.

[clockdoc]

Thanks for the tips, Nicole. I have not used Ilford paper in the printer as yet. Do you know if it shows a logo on the back like the Kodak amd HP papers do? If I could find a paper slightly heavier than the regular inkjet paper but with a gloss on one side, that would be ideal. 8-) I may also try to do some monochrome images and see if they look OK on the matte surface. I have much to learn here.

[Teewinot]

clockdoc, thanks for sharing your project. Your cards look great and I'm sure your great-niece really appreciates your help! I will explain how I make greeting cards in case it might give you ideas for yours. I'm fairly new at the process myself, so I'm also looking for ways to improve!

I used to use the perforated "note cards" card stock paper by Avery, but I found it too expensive. Recently I started buying unperforated 8.5X11 card stock paper (white and textured tan) and then I cut and fold myself. I bought a straight-edge paper cutter to assist. That seems to be working well and boy does it save me a lot of money.

In terms of printing, I actually print my photos on separate paper, making them a slightly smaller size than the card stock itself. Sometimes I even leave on a slight white border around the photo. Currently I use Epson Photo Quality Ink Jet Paper for this, although I'm interested in upgrading to something better (the photos aren't as richly colored). I'd ideally like to use my regular premium glossy photo paper, but unfortunately it's much more expensive. Then I just tape the photo with double-sided tape onto the card and put my title and signature in pen below right onto the card itself.

Finally, I sometimes package my cards & envelopes depending on use. I recently bought a bunch of card bags and card boxes from www.clearbags.com. I'm expecting them in the mail soon. Their prices seem reasonable when you buy in bulk. Currently I am selling to friends and family mostly and they like to order packs of cards to give as gifts to their friends and family. Having them packaged in a clear card box or in bags is nice.

Here's an example of a finished product (sorry I took this photo a while back and the glare masked my sig & title):

(my new bags will be a tighter fit too)

Keep us updated as to your progress. As I said, I'm looking to improve my work-flow as well as I (hopefully) get more customers!

[kairos]

I like the cards they look great. Have you tried printing on the inside? My brain was doing gymnastics trying to work out which way to put the paper in the printer.

I have looked for a program on the Internet that would have a set up allowing you to print on the inside of the card but so far I have not found one. I am sure one must exist. My Canon software has a program for making cards but I have never been able to work out how to use the program or maybe my idea of a greetings card is beyond the scope of the program!

I will have a go at making some cards and let you know how I get on.

[Nicole]

Well, the paper that I was looking at says that it's especially good for cards because it's essentially just glossy on one side and matte on the other. Unfortunately the review said that it wasn't actually double sided (despite the description) I find it hard to believe that nobody else would do paper without the maker logo on the back... If I come across anything I'll post back here though. Now I'm really curious

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by kairos

I like the cards they look great. Have you tried printing on the inside? My brain was doing gymnastics trying to work out which way to put the paper in the printer.

It's easy to print on the inside just making the whole thing in photoshop. Just test your print on a plain piece of paper first, so that you can see which way you would need to put your card in. It may take a few tries, but there are only so many ways that it can go in

[clockdoc]

Hi Teewinot. Thanks for the info. friend out in Nevada uses a Wal-Mart product that has little corner inserts with which you secure the print to the card stock. I think they may also be fairly expensive on a unit basis. I'll have to check with the "Angel" painter and see what their costs are now that they have switched to a volume commercial printer. How large is the card that you showed in the plastic bag? Do you sell your matted prints in the same manner? I just saw an ad on TV for a device aimed at scrapbook enthusiasts that cuts as well as scores the paper. I didn't get the details so I'll have to pay attention the next time it is on.

[Nicole]

I've come across a few online paper sellers that seem to sell the sort of thing you're looking for, one sells a sample pack of greeting card types for $8. Might be useful if you're just trying to find a type that works best because you could print the same image on each of the samples and make a decision about what works best. They also have glossy greeting cards. (There's also PaperSource which I've heard good things about, but they don't seem to have glossy cards).

And last but not least I was going to show you an example from another Flickr member who was discussing making cards. The example is similar to Teewinot's and can be seen here

[Teewinot]

Originally Posted by clockdoc

Hi Teewinot. Thanks for the info. friend out in Nevada uses a Wal-Mart product that has little corner inserts with which you secure the print to the card stock. I think they may also be fairly expensive on a unit basis. I'll have to check with the "Angel" painter and see what their costs are now that they have switched to a volume commercial printer. How large is the card that you showed in the plastic bag? Do you sell your matted prints in the same manner? I just saw an ad on TV for a device aimed at scrapbook enthusiasts that cuts as well as scores the paper. I didn't get the details so I'll have to pay attention the next time it is on.

clockdoc,

Those corner inserts are an interesting idea. I have shied away from them for my cards because the ones I currently have for scrapbooking are really cheap and don't stick very well! I would imagine that there are better versions out there.

The card inside the plastic bag is a 4 & 3/8" by 5 & 3/4" standard "note" or "invitation" card. Lately I've been leaving less border on the card and making the photo to be only a few millimeters smaller than the card. The card is already fairly small, so if I leave a 1/2 to 1 inch border like I did in the past (as seen on my example) then certain subjects just get too small printed at that size.

I haven't sold matted prints packaged for store display too often, but when I had them in a gift shop a year ago, I packaged them in plastic similar to the cards. At that time I actually bought 8.5X11 3-ring-binder page protectors and cut off the 3-ring-binder portion! For the 8X10's, it was perfect. I think for the 4X6's I used scrapbook refill pages. But that project was hurried and I needed something fast. Those page protectors and refill pages are expensive!! As I mentioned in my earlier post, I've now decided to go with products that are actually designed for what I'm using them for (clearbags) and thankfully they are sold in bulk (=way cheaper).

That device sounds cool! Cutting and scoring...might be pretty useful.