Stamping Your Way to Money in the Bank

Greeting cards are the traditional paper cards; there are also e-cards, musical cards, and now there are the recordable greeting cards. With the advances of cards we all could use an alternate way of sending good wishes to one another without breaking our budgets.

A variety of events occur throughout the year, each requiring a greeting card. It is estimated that an average of 28 Christmas cards are purchased by each person in one year.

The average cost of a card is $3.00 each. You will have spent 28 x $3.00 = $84.00 per year on greeting cards. Wouldn't it be fantastic if you could spend less money on cards, without looking cheap? The answer is to stamp your own cards.

Go to a craft store and purchase a stamp set of sayings you will utilize on an abundance of cards. Sayings such as "Thinking of You", "Happy Anniversary", "Happy Birthday", "Thank You", "Congratulations", "It's a Girl", and "It's a Boy" are common. When I purchased my set it was on sale for $8.00.

Next I looked at another stamp set for decoration on the cards. This set came with an ink pad so I didn't have to purchase that separately, and was on sale for $8.50. After shopping around, I found cardstock, some flowers, and some ribbon all on clearance. The total for all of these items was $7.25. With those few items you are ready to make cards for the entire year.

A quick calculation shows ($3.00 x 28 = $84.00) + (.41 x 28 = 11.48) = 95.48 for twenty-eight cards and the stamps to send them. Stamping your own, the cost of sending the same twenty-eight cards is $8.00 + $8.50 + $7.25 + 11.48 = 35.23. The difference, $60.25 is in your bank account.

When shopping for items to use for decoration on cards, shop clearance items, sales, and most importantly, a dollar store. Glitter pens, calligraphy pens, colored markers, colored pencils, paper flowers, and tissue paper are all things which I have seen in a Dollar Store. I'm sure there are many more items you can find there . . . it all depends on how creative you plan to be.

Get together with some friends and have a stamping evening. Think of the time stamping cards, having fun, and catching up.

In addition, you can stamp your own gift wrap, gift bags, wall hangings, plaques, fabrics, virtually anything you can think of. The stamps you have will be very useful indeed.

Let your creative juices flow, spend less without looking cheap, and most importantly Have Fun!!!