Custom Greeting Cards

My creative urge has led me to try and design my own greeting cards this Christmas, whether it happens this year or next is another matter but I'm going to start thinking about it early and give it a shot. They'll only be for friends & family, & it'll probably more expensive than just grabbing a pack from Oxfam but I hope the experience will be rewarding!

I've never done anything like this before, but luckily the folks over at Illustration Friday have been pretty helpful in answering some of my very basic questions, and I think I roughly know what I might need.

Planning - Finding resources in the US is easy but a little harder to track down in the UK, but there's some good tips over at KookyKards and useful info on size codes and envelopes/cellophane.

Designing - hmm yeah still got to do this bit. I hope to have a shortlist created in the next few months. Then I might ask for some feedback on the best one design to carry through!

Printing - Thanks to nic for recommending ThinkInk a UK based printers who very quickly sent me an impressive sample pack. I think when it comes to this stage these guys will do fine.

Finishing - I always think having envelopes that compliment the card colours look far higher in quality than plain white so I might order some extra goodies such as coloured envelopes or cellophane wrappers. Of course, this will have to wait until I'm happy with a design though! I have my eye on SimplyEnvelopes or Mayfair as (after my brief investigations) they seem reasonably priced, though I am open to better suggestions!

Check out these inspiring card sites: TearDrop, BlueTurtleStudio and lots at Bottman - especially Sue Jenkins ones.

Tag: greeting card