Stamp Card

Making Money with Card Making

Making Money with Card Making

How expensive are cards nowadays? Just to buy a simple pretty card for someone can cost you $3 - $5 and for more elaborate ones I've seen them for $7 - $9 and up. As pretty as they may be that's insane paying that much for a pretty piece of paper haha! Firstly there's the present to buy (or make I should say!) and then the card. As precious as it is to give someone something special that they really want, our budgets don't always go that far so even saving a few dollars here and there on the prices of a card and wrapping paper adds up.  I've got a friend who had a great idea, she bought a large roll of plain paper (like the paper fish and chips are wrapped in) and she gets her kids to dip their hands in paint and make handprints all over the paper. It was very cheap to buy and what a beautiful touch for grandparents etc receiving a lovely gift in hand printed paper from their own grandkids.

So what if I told you that you can make the most spectacular looking cards for a fraction of the cost of retail cards? Either just for yourself to give away or you could sell them. Cards are nice and small and light to post if selling them on a website and/or easy to carry in your car and set up a display at a local market. Remembering the wind haha! You may need a display folder or rack to display them in.

Some of the big retail shops have the most beautiful embellishments and card accessories to design your cards but again they're not all that cheap. Often you can come across all sorts of pretty things you can use for card making at your cheap $2 shops, second hand shops, wholesale websites and even lying around your home. A simple idea such as sewing a couple of old buttons on to a scrap piece of ribbon with pretty thread can be all you need to make your card stand out.

If you wanted to sell your cards, just a couple of rules to remember are: Is there any insurance you need such as public liability? I'm not too sure what damage someone could do with a card but you just don't know, a child could choke on an embellishment, someone could poke themselves it the eye so it pays just to double check. Also I'm pretty sure that you are not allowed to use anything with a brand name on it for commercial use. What information do you need to display on your cards, such as contact info on the back? (A small business centre/local government website should be able to help you with this).

Card making, similar to scrap booking, uses things like ribbons, rubber stamps, card stock, inks, cutters/scissors, glue, glitters, embossing powder, embellishments, eyelets and the list goes on. You don't need all of this though at the same time, cards that are simple can look just as pretty as cards that have just too much stuff on them.  Again most of these items can be found at less than retail prices if you shop around. For example a local craft shop sells bundles of card stock which works out to about a $1 per sheet, where as the local office supply ware house sells bundles that work out to about 60c per sheet. Again using a business tax number it would probably be cheaper again and/or buying in bulk. You could also make your own envelopes to suit your cards with a similar colour, picture on etc or buy plain ones in bundles. (Card stock is a thin piece of cardboard suitable to fold etc that will stand a little more rigid than a piece of paper).

Think of all of the Special Occasions where cards are given. Christmas, Birthday's, Father's Day, Mother's Day, Get Well Soon, Congratulations On Your Baby Boy/Girl, Happy Anniversary and many more. In your area there may be a special celebration that you could cash in on by making cards to suit. Without going too crazy though and having boxes of cards sitting there for a year!

You need to do your homework and figure out a rough cost on making your cards and then price them accordingly. When I say rough for example, you may buy five different ink pads at $5 each and those ink pads may last for a hundred cards or more or less. So spending the $25 may be spread over quite a few cards. With clever planning and hunting around for the best bargains you could quite easily find supplies for a good price, make fantastic and pretty looking cards which didn't cost much to make and sell them for a good profit. You could still be far cheaper than the retail prices of cards and people would probably really appreciate being able to buy beautiful cards and still have change in their pockets haha!

What if you don't have the neatest of writing to write on your cards? What if you can't draw to save your life so you can't have pretty pictures on your cards? This is where rubber stamps are great. Again you can pick them up quite cheap if you hunt around. There are millions of different designs of pictures and sayings that it's as easy as dabbing them onto the ink pad and stamping them onto your card.  It does pay to practice a little first to make sure you have even coverage of the ink on your stamp and you lift your stamp back off the card straight up so the ink doesn't smudge.

Also there are many great designs of cards using different cuts and folds. With a little knowledge and/or your imagination the limits are endless as to what you can make. To get started you could grab some craft magazines and books pertaining to card making but the best way I've found is online tutorials. You have a person right in front of you teaching you with measurements etc how to fold and cut card stock into some fantastic designs. Even just using one method in different colours and patterns could give you a great wide selection of cards to start selling quite quickly.  You could key in "card making video" into your browser and go from there. Some stunning looking cards are actually very simple and quick to make.

Another great place to sell your cards is at local gift shops especially hospital cafes/gift shops. Some hospitals have quite strict rules nowadays about fresh flowers due to allergies so a beautiful handmade card could make a good replacement.  Local newsagencies are also a great place and it doesn't hurt to ask. Remember, as always, to account for your fuel and time costs. You could incorporate it into your shopping days to do drop offs and hopefully pick up your earnings along the way.
Another idea would be to take orders for personalized cards, either advertising on your website or you could have stickers made up with your details stating you make cards to order and stick it on the back of your cards. You could use an alphabet stencil and write someone's name in pretty glitter or embossing powder to add than personal touch. Say an 18th or 21st Birthday card would make a lovely keepsake. Someone could say it's their son's Birthday and he'd love a football themed card.  It's a very individual thing to know your own time you have and what effort you want to put in to do personal orders.

Card making is fairly cheap to start, you don't need too many fancy tools, they don't take up much room, they can be very quick and easy to make, millions get sold every year and they can be great fun to make and experiment with different ideas. Unlike sewing etc where you may ruin an expensive piece of material, it doesn't really matter if you make the odd mistake on your cards. You can just put that card aside to use for scrap paper for cut outs etc and just start again without stressing about cost and the time you've put into it.

As always it pays to do your homework first to find out how well cards sell where you want to sell them and at what cost. There's no point making beautiful cards and putting a price ticket of $5 dollars on them when the person next door at the markets sells them for $4! Also make a few sample cards first and test the waters. There would be no point making 100 cards to sell at the local hospital to find out they don't really sell because everybody stops at the shop just outside the hospital first. Then you could go and see that shop keeper too, of course!

Hope this has given you some good ideas of how to/
get started in card making and selling them.

Thanks for reading,

Beth

 

About the Author

Beth Thompson

www.cobbylanecraft.com

cobbylanecraft@bigpond.com

 

Do you think I would have to put an extra stamp on a card to mail to another state?

It's one of those hallmark singing card, kinda thick but not that thick. So do you think it need an extra postage stamp?

I would put another stamp on it not because its going to another state but because of the weight. You can send a regular letter to Puerto Rico for the same price it is to send a regular letter to anywhere in the US. It's only 42 cents just do it just to be safe.

Happy Day Card Project

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 at 12:20 pm and is filed under scrapbooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.