Money Saving Christmas Cards

Save your family money this year by making your own Christmas cards. This project saves you money and adds a personal touch to your holiday greetings. Cards can be handmade and written or created on the computer and printed. This article details how to make your cards using the computer and your printer.

What you will need: 1) stock-card weight paper or blank greeting card paper purchased at your local office supply store. Hint, if you or someone you know works in an office, have them save you any heavy-weight stationery or note cards they are throwing away (such as during a logo change), you can trim off the company information and have note cards weight paper at no cost. 2) Picture or images for your card. For copyright protection, make sure you are using a free clipart (most word processing software offers clipart you can use), pictures you have taken, or images that are shared, such as those on Wikimedia (www.wikimedia.org); and 3) wording for your card, again, be aware of copyright laws and either write your greeting yourself or find a copyright free one. Again, some software programs offer greetings within the program. Microsoft Publisher® as well as Print Shop Pro® both have greetings to choose from. Finally, you will need access to a computer with a word processing program and a printer.

First, decide on your theme. Do you want humorous, sentimental, religious or family themed cards? Perhaps you want a mixture of cards, humorous for friends and family themed for relatives. The choices are up to you. After deciding, locate your images and save them to a file on your computer. It's easier to manage if you make a folder labeled holiday cards to keep all the files you will need to make them.

Next, decide on your wording. It can be as simple as Merry Christmas or as lengthy as a poem. Check your software for wording ideas or access to online sites for wording. Microsoft offers templates with wording that you can download and use (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates) as does DLTK's website (www.dltk-holidays.com/xmas/cards/index.htm) and Shutterfly (www.shutterfly.com/digiscraptemplates). There are many other sites that a Google search can lead you to.

Now that you have your wording and your images you need to put your card together. If you browsed through the online sites looking for wording you will have noticed that there are literally hundreds of templates available for making greeting cards. Some require a simple registration and some are downloads for free software to make the cards with.

Using templates for making greeting cards is the simplest method for making them. The template eliminates the need to know how to create mirror margins for double sided printing. Most templates are a simple select and replace process, replace the generic images or text with your images or text.

Blank templates work by having the required margins for double sided printing and other aspects set up. You create the design and all other aspects of the card. This process works well if you have an idea of how you want your card to look and are familiar with aligning images and text. Consult your software's help section for information specific to your program.

Using the template of your choice, your images and wording, you are now ready to put your cards together. Once you have completed your design, you will need to print one on plain paper to test it before using the card stock paper. Print and fold to look for any areas that need adjustments. Depending on your software and printer, the most common adjustment you might need is due to double sided printing.

Most home printers do not have a duplex option. Double sided printing is done manually and this is where errors are usually found. Test your printer to make sure you are reinserting the pages in the correct orientation for double-sided printing.

Now that you have your cards ready for final printing, print as many as you know you will mail. You can always print more if needed. Make your cards more personal by signing them by hand. You are now ready to mail out your homemade creations. Not only have you saved money, you have added a personal touch to your holiday greetings that your friends are sure to appreciate.