How to Create your own Holiday Greeting cards

This season you may have thought about the people in your life who you don't get to see often enough, but mean just as much to you as your coworkers, or informal acquaintances. Why spend money on Hallmark during these difficult economic times? You don't necessarily have to be a creative genius to do it yourself. Why not try making your own holiday cards this year?



Here are some tips on how to make your cards as special as they can be.

1. Don't be a perfectionist.
These cards are hand-made and coming straight from a loved one. That already makes them pretty special. With some help from our list of resources, you can be confident that no one is going to laugh at your crude attempts to draw Santa Claus - unless comedy is your goal!

2. Pick a theme
Maybe it's 'family' or maybe it's a religious theme. Whatever it is, try to continue your theme throughout the whole card. Don't try to include every snapshot or every Christmas symbol, or your cards will look cluttered.
Also, you don't necessarily have to use Christmas themes - a theme based on shared interests will mean your cards stay out on the mantelpiece longer!

3. Go Outside
Take your digital camera or camera phone and snap some shots of where you live. Round up the kids and put them in the foreground. Let distant family members see what they're missing.

4. Use some of these sites to help make your cards


Go to DaFont and pick out a cool typeface - it's free!
http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=601

One of the coolest Flash sites on the web is ScrapBlog - where you can create and share online scrapbooks using pre-generated templates and your own graphics.
http://www.scrapblog.com/
You can also print your cards straight from ScrapBlog.

Get some cool holiday icons for spicing up your holiday wishes.
http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=601

Note: these resources are all free, but don't go stealing other people's images without permission! That will definitely put you on Santa's naughty list.

5. Keep it short and sweet
A common holiday tradition is to write about family activities and the current status of each family member. If you're a particularly skilled writer there's no harm in filling a page, but no one will feel like you're Scrooge if you keep it to just a few cheerful lines of plain prose.

6. Print on decent photo paper.
A package of glossy paper will only set you back a few dollars for the average Christmas card run. You should be able to fit a couple of cards on one page - look for the 'pages per sheet'option in your printer options dialogue. You can try 2up or 4up per page.

7. Invest in a paper-cutter.
These run the gamut from very small plastic zips to large wooden blocks with giant cleavers. Whatever your budget, a paper cutter will help you to trim down your cards to the right envelope size and avoid that hasty 'folded sheet of letter paper' look. Watch your fingers!

Creating your own holiday cards is a fun activity that will improve your computer skills, and can be done as a family.

From all of us at OutRight Communications
have a Happy Holiday season!