Christmas Cards...

Cheddar_2

My wife and I run a small Driving Instructor and Fleet Training business and we are looking to send personalised Christmas Cards to all our trainees and colleagues this year

Most of the websites offering such a service charge the earth, and the best offers finished earlier in the year.

Does anyone know of a cost effective way of doing this? I would like our company logo on there (on the front or inside), along with a message.

I have considered buying packs of blank Christmas cards (from somewhere?) and printing direct onto the cards via our Inkjet printer but I have tried this in the past and the quality of the card often makes the ink bleed and therefore the end result look terrible. Alternatively, we could perhaps make some kind of insert for them, but I don't want them too look too amateur-ish!

Any suggestions?

kethry

I make my own cards. I think your best bet would be to think in terms of printing a christmas "picture", or whatever it is you want on the front of your card onto a stiffish card (thicker than paper, but soft enough to go through the printer without that horrible ink run you describe - you can buy coloured paper), and then cut around your design. You can then use stickybacked foam pads to stick it to the card, but its raised "off" the card, which makes it look a little more professional. You can add paper to stick to the card, so your picture - the raised up part - sits within a "frame" on the front of the card. I'm not describing very well... here are some pictures of my own efforts that might help demonstrate. what you can't see here is the "raised up" part, but they are there. (here, here and here.)

you don't say how many you have to do, but you can also print out a small insert to stick inside the card, that could carry your company logo and corporate greetings. The more you have to make, the less you are going to want to faff around with getting each one letter perfect, really. I've got to do 40 for a charity fair by next thursday, which is gonna be fun - then there's my family to do after that!

As for blank cards, well, again, it depends how many you want to do. I know The Works are offering packs of 50 cards - one pack is gold, red, green, the other is light blue, silver and lilac. you can buy small packs of say 10 cards, blank, but in different sizes, different colours and so on. Your best bet is to find a craft shop of the kind that sells art products, and look around for ideas. You can buy all sorts of things that may make it easier to make your own cards, in shops like these, by the way: from transfers (you'd be surprised how professional they can look) to stamps, designs that you just have to stick onto the cards, ribbons, pens that will make your writing look good.. if you go to a small independent shop (as opposed to somewhere like hobbycraft) i think you'll also get good advice, but that's a personal choice.

Other than that, the only other thing i can think of is that you find that small independent shop and ask if either they know someone who can make them for you, on a amateur basis or if they'll let you put a card in their window asking the same thing.

If you're near Manchester i may be able to advise on good places to go.

Hope that helps!

keth
xx

Cheddar_2

Wow Keth - thanks for such a great reply! Very much appreciated :beer:

I don't think I made myself as clear as I should have done, really. I would like to do the least amount of practical work possible, and was thinking of buying blank Christmas Cards with the front already printed, i.e. like every other Christmas Card on sale in the shops, but without the pre-printed greeting inside.

We need to make about 60 cards I reckon. My wife runs a large driving school too, and she'd probably look at sending about 200, too.

We live about 20 mins from Manchester

kethry

Given you're going to need almost 300 cards, and you want as little work as possible, i'd suggest that you go for a design that will allow you to print an insert and use a trimmer to cut them out - if you go for the right size card, you could do 4 inserts to an A4 page, and that will make using a trimmer much easier. again, to cut down on the amount of work, i would suggest you buy cards where every single design/size is the same. Easier said than done. Your best bet is those packs of 10. this won't be cheap, but then i think you knew that already.

There are certainly blank cards out there (blank as in.. they have a picture on the front but blank inside) but i've only ever seen them sold singly, as they tend to be the more expensive kind. The only other thing i can think of: print your inserts onto thick paper, so that any writing inside the card would be covered by the insert. that wouldn't work if you were using thin white paper for your insert, of course! You'll have to make sure to glue them down. Use good glue, especially if your inserts cover the preprinted greeting. Nothing more embarrassing than cards falling to pieces when they've been sent..

sorry i can't really help more than that. If you want to try the independent card shops: there's an arts store in the center of manchester, Fred Aldous, which is in Lever Street, there's an independent card crafting shop in Ashton under Lyne, i forget the name of it but its on Stamford Street Central - the end closest to Scotland Street/Park Parade. I think there's also a Hobbycraft in Stockport. Don't know where though, as i've never been there. There's also a card/paper shop in the Lowry retail outlet place. Don't know how good that is either, or even if its still there - thats going from memory that is about 5 years old!

Hope that helps!

keth
xx

Morty_007

Have PM'ed you
x

li'l_p

You can by inserts already cut to size from here: http://www.pdacardandcraft.co.uk/merchant.ihtml?step=2&cid=25. I highly recommend this company as I have made 200 and 300 (respectively) company Christmas cards for the past 2 years. With making so many I had to keep the design simple for mass production.

I hit upon the idea of doing a die cut shape on the front and a basic Christmas greeting. The insert was printed with the Company logo and everyone's names signed - these were pre-signed onto paper, scanned and arranged on the page in a desktop publishing package. No need for passing all 200/300 round for signing.

Here is the end result:


Outside

Inside (logo disguised for security reasons).

The inserts are what I bought from PDA Card & Craft; they are cut slightly smaller than the card and I glued them in using a glue roller.