Hand Drawn Cards

Transferring Your Drawings onto Greeting Cards

I have been making cards for a few years simply using paper and embellishments. I love to draw and often sketch designs I would love to print on cards.

What is involved in getting a hand-drawn design printed onto greeting cards to sell? I want to begin designing my own cards but don't know how to begin this. I would so appreciate your advice.

Thank you!

Katie

You can pay someone to do it for you or you can do it yourself. If you’ve already researched the market and have an idea of how many cards you can sell, you can figure out the economics and decide which route is best for you.

Printing Cards at Your Local Office Center

Go to your local office center and see what services they supply. Most have pre-scored card stock and matching envelopes you can select from.

They will copy your hand-drawn card onto their stock. Most will allow you to provide your own card stock, as long as it is compatible with their equipment. That gives you more options as far as size, texture, color and quality go.

Have A Commercial Printer Print Your Cards

It used to be that commercial printers wouldn’t even talk to you unless you wanted several thousand copies. It simply wasn’t economical for them to fire up those big presses for a short print run. With new printing equipment, all that is changing.

You should be able to find a small commercial printer that specializes in short runs or even one that specializes in printing cards.

They will have a wide selection of good quality card stock and matching envelopes. You may be able to get a volume discount because, even with the newer printing equipment, it is still the case that setup is the most labor-intensive part of the commercial printing process.

If the printer requires a digital format, be sure to ask which ones they can accept. Most can use .PDF, .JPG and a few other formats. Here is an article on Preparing your Design to Take to a Commercial Printer.

Print Your Cards Yourself

If you have some or all of the equipment required and plan to grow your business gradually, it may make more sense to produce your own cards initially.

You need a flatbed scanner, good quality printer, greeting card or photo manipulation software, paper scoring tool, paper cutter (optional) and paper stock.

With software like Printshop, Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, you simply scan your design into a blank document, position it, add text and whatever else you want and print.

Here are a couple of articles you may find helpful:
Greeting Card Software Reviews
Getting Started Making Your Own Cards
Laying Out Cards in Printshop

There are many more greeting card ideas on The Artful Crafter. Check out the Greeting Card and Printing Help section of our Computer Crafting Index.