Creating Greeting Cards with Children

Hallmark -'we don't need no stinking Hallmark'. All right, the grammar in that sentence even hurt me just to type it. Nevertheless, with computers, software, and imagination at the ready, our family designs our own greeting cards.

Homemade greetings cards for birthdays

There is no limit to what cards can be created for these yearly events. Have a big family; have an even bigger extended circle of family and friends? Money can be saved as well as memories cherished from a personally designed greeting card. Know the person and design the card around what you know. Poems and creative expressions written by children mean more than store bought cards. Imagine all the poems that could be written to the tune of Happy Birthday. Imagine all the monkeys you could place on the cards. (My children, when younger, liked that verse from the song... kids!)

Homemade greeting cards for anniversaries

Imagine a couple wedded fifty years opening up a card with a panoramic picture of all their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Imagine the tears of love and joy! Make the card accordion like with multiple pages with pictures detailing their life and love over the last fifty years. Each child can write or design his or her own page of the card as well. The card would be the best gift, so much so that the gifts, expensive ones at that, are left all but forgotten on the gift table as the card is circled around and memories are shared with laughter and love at the huge gala. Or around the dinner table, or even in the family room.

Homemade greeting cards for Christmas

This is one of my favorites. My children and I take card stock, (purchased at various times throughout the year when on clearance) and after deciding a picture of each one to use (that we took with a digital camera) we make angel cards. The face of each child is the angel and he or she decorates around it. However, they are growing up and not always so angelic throughout the years so this year a picture of them dancing around might be ideal. Think about it-ideas are endless. This is the one time store bought greeting cards can be less expensive to buy, as a Christmas card list can be rather daunting.

Homemade greeting cards for parties

This is my favorite! My daughter wanted a slumber party one year on the day Christmas vacation started. We went even further and made it into a cookie exchange. The invitation card, a giant cookie wrapped in green cellophane and a red ribbon. A cookie we made. Imagine the possibilities!

Homemade greeting cards for thank you's

Using a picture of the gift as a back screen, print up a written thank you and you are set. My children received chopper bicycles one year, and the thank you was written on the backdrop of a helmet, elbow and kneepads and a Harley emblem. Inside was a picture of each of them riding their bike.

Homemade greeting cards for other holidays

Valentine's? Hearts galore and children can be so creative. Grandparent's Day? (Coming up September 9th!) Create a card around a project they have done together or with past report cards. (Hopefully, the grades were worth showing off.) Halloween? Ghosts and goblins, witches and black cats? The possibilities are endless. Each year is more of an adventure. This year the card will be one with my daughter dressed up like a witch and my son a ghoul.

Not only will these homemade cards save you money, but also they will add so many treasured memories to your life. Nevertheless, Hallmark has been around forever, and more than once this company has saved my bacon one a birthday or other holiday that has crept up on me too fast. Therefore, I do retract my opening statement.