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Five Tips For Making Personalized Greeting Cards You have the power to create attractive greeting cards without spending lots of money. When you make your own greeting cards, every aspect of the card takes on greater importance. Personalized greeting cards are a boon for small business owners who want to market their firm or services. At home, personalized greeting cards keep you in touch with friends and family.

1. Reflect Your Relationship

Greeting cards for a business associate will take on a very different look and feel than ones for a close friend. Think about the message you want to convey before you start the design process. The colors, images and text you choose will all work together to set the tone for the card. Bright reds and yellows work well with a more casual and carefree sentiment. Muted grays and browns suggest a more reserved relationship. Whether you write the text yourself, or use a popular quotation, choose a sentiment that is appropriate for your relationship. If you would be uncomfortable saying the words to a business associate in a face to face encounter, think twice before including it in a greeting card.

2. Use A Clean Layout

Take a cue from professional designers and keep your presentation simple. If you are creating your own design and need to use many objects, one trick is to group like objects together on the page. It will help the page to look less cluttered. Take advantage of professionally designed templates that some companies will offer to you free of charge. Using professional templates will still allow you to create the style you want, but you have some assurance that your spacing and proportions will give your cards a polished look.

3. Choose A Good Quality Paper

Whether you print the cards yourself or hire a professional to print them, select a high quality paper. Good paper holds ink better and produces clearer, less muddy images. Paper manufacturers are bringing a wider variety of paper choice on to the market. Select the paper that matches the elements in your greeting cards the best. If you are using a photograph as your main element, make the card with photographic paper. Alternatively, use photographic paper only for the photograph and layer the photo onto the card.

4. Take All Parts Of The Card Into Account

Include something for the front, back and interior of the card. Add a decorative element for the envelope to complete the package. The front of the card is your chance to make a big splash. The front should let the recipients know why you are sending the card. The inside of the card brings it all together. Traditionally the back of greeting cards is to identify the manufacturer and provide copyright information. Use the back of your card to reveal that you are the designer. The envelope is more than a way to deliver your card, it is your first opportunity to signal to your recipients that they are about to open something special. Add a small logo or design to the envelope that gives a hint to the contents. Set the recipients’ expectations and then follow through with a card set in the same style and tone.

5. Create A Signature Style

Add something special to your cards that will define your work and help your recipients recognize your creations in the future. A signature style does not need to be overt; it can be something basic, such as using clean lines, or featuring animals in your photographs. If you are sending cards to business associates or clients, use your style to reinforce an idea you want them to hold about your company. If you want to remind them that your business does things with a flourish, then add extra details into your cards. If you want to convey the message of being a straight-forward company, then keep your style simple and skip the bells and whistles. Creating your own greeting cards gives you a chance to express your creativity while saving some money. It is a simple way of letting friends, family, clients and business associates know you think they are special.

This article was written by James Adams from Cartridge Save, who blogs and writes articles on HP printer cartridges and Canon ink cartridges.