Printable Christmas Cards?

What are printable Christmas cards?

As you know, Christmas is the biggest holiday of the year. During each Christmas season, close to two billion Christmas cards are sent throughout the United States. Millions of those include printable Christmas cards. Also, it should be noted that the number quoted (almost two billion) does not include cards that are exchanged between friends, at school and over the internet. With the rising prices of everything these days, particularly gas, which trickles down to impact and raise the prices of everything that depends on gas to be delivered to its destination, many individuals are choosing to create their own printable Christmas cards to help offset other unavoidable costs (such as postage to mail those printable Christmas cards!).
Printable Christmas cards are cards that are printed off of a printer (usually at home) for mailing. Many times they are designed right at home or in an office using a graphic creation program or card creation program, but may also be downloaded from commercial or personal web sites for personal and commercial use.

Why should I use printable Christmas cards?

You can use printable Christmas cards as a way to offset the cost of purchasing store-bought Christmas cards. You can use printable Christmas cards because it's too late to go to a store, they don't have what you're looking for, or you don't have the time to get out and look for store-bought Christmas cards. Or, you may use printable Christmas cards simply because you're looking for something different to use to greet friends and family with.

Ways to come up with printable Christmas cards

There are three basic ways to come up with printable Christmas cards to send to friends and loved ones.
The first method of creating printable Christmas cards involves purchasing Christmas card templates from a specialty or craft store, and using your computer and printer to create the inner part of the card, the part that contains the personalized greeting and message. Once you're done printing out this inlay, attach it to the inside of your card, and it's ready for mailing! Supplies required: a computer, a printer, paper and ink.
The second method of creating printable Christmas cards involves using greeting card creation software. Many card makers, including Hallmark and Carlton, routinely release special software packages that enable consumers to create their own custom printable greeting cards, including printable Christmas cards. Supplies required: a computer, a printer, card stock paper, ink, greeting card software.
The third method of creating printable Christmas cards involves downloading templates from web sites These templates may be free or low cost, and vary from one web site to another. They are almost always ready for immediate printing, and only require a signature from you in order to be ready for mailing. Supplies required: a computer, a printer, card stock paper, ink.

Choosing a size for your printable Christmas cards

Printable Christmas cards and greeting cards in general come in a variety of sizes that can be off by a few centimeters or even a few inches, depending on the manufacturer of the card, the type of card and where the card is being sold at. General sizes include six and a half inches by five inches, five inches by seven inches, and four and a quarter inches by five and a half inches. The size you use for your printable Christmas cards is entirely up to you. Of course, choose a size that is perfect for you to include all of the card's pictures and text on, and that the size isn't too small (so that everything is squished together), or too large (so that there is excess white space).

Choosing paper for your printable Christmas cards

Many people are so focused on the design and layout of their printable Christmas cards that they neglect one crucial aspect of the printing process: the paper on which the printable Christmas cards are being printed on! Let's face it: the better the paper, the better the printable Christmas card will look. If you use cheap or regular printing paper, then your Christmas cards will, unfortunately, look rather tacky and cheap. Unless, of course, you are printing out printable Christmas cards for children, who in that case will not notice the quality of the paper.
So, it is in your best interest to choose high quality paper stock or card stock paper for your printable Christmas cards. Card stock is available in a variety of colors, from white to gray to black, from the lightest pastel to the most vivid shade of pink and orange you can imagine. Card stock can also come with embellished or colored edges that may even be edged in silver and gold. Cart stock is available in a variety of thickness, and may be flat looking, or even textured. Card stock may come with pre-fold lines, or you may have to carefully and manually fold it when you are ready to.

Layouts of printable Christmas cards

You can design printable Christmas cards to be in a horizontal or vertical layout. In addition, you can have a horizontal layout that features the card opening horizontally or vertically, or perhaps you would like a vertical layout that features the card opening horizontally or vertically.

Downloading printable Christmas cards

Many web sites offer printable Christmas cards that available for downloading and printing. Most of the time these printable Christmas cards are ready-made, which means there are no opportunities to make any manual adjustments before printing. Other printable Christmas cards, particularly those that can be found on commercial web sites and are available for purchase, may allow you to make minor changes to text and image placement before you download and print them.
Most of the time, when you download printable Christmas cards, they come as-is. Often they'll be shown laid out on an eight and a half by eleven inch paper format, and upon printing out, are ready to be folded in half, or possibly folded in half again to make a quarter card.

Finding free printable Christmas cards online

The internet is a great place to look for printable Christmas cards, particularly if you are looking for free printable Christmas cards. As I'm sure you know (why else would you be reading this article?), commercially produced and printed Christmas holiday greeting cards can be very expensive, and those handmade, do-it-yourself Christmas holiday greeting cards can be costly and time consuming. Free printable Christmas cards are a great compromise: they are still creative and of high quality, but can save you a lot of time! You can look for free printable Christmas cards online to use for this holiday season.

Designing your own printable Christmas cards

Whether you do it from scratch in a graphics editing program, or choose to use greeting card software, you will be required to give some of your own input in order to create printable Christmas greeting cards. If you choose the route of greeting card software, then you won't have to do much, besides select the type of card you want to use. Generally, to generate a printable Christmas card in a greeting card program, you'll be prompted to select a horizontal or vertical layout, and choose a border or image for use on your card. Many greeting card creation software packages also offer special photo greeting cards, which are generally horizontal in layout and sized eight inches by four inches. These special cards allow you to use a full four inch by six inch photo, or a three inch by five inch photo, for use as the primary object on your greeting card. Other standard greeting card templates within these software packages allow for an optional placement of a small photo, though they aren't the primary focus of the cards themselves.

Designing your own printable Christmas cards from scratch can be a daunting task, but many people relish it and look forward to the idea of exercising their creativity and pushing it to the limits. If you're designing completely from scratch, you'll need to select every aspect of the printable Christmas cards, from the size of the card (half fold, quarter fold), to the orientation of it (horizontal, vertical), to how it opens (horizontally, vertically), and of course, the design of the card itself.

Once you have chosen the size of the card, the orientation of it and how it opens, you'll need to select colors for your printable Christmas cards. It is important that you choose the colors before going any further, because the colors you use can and possibly will dictate the overall look of your card.

Now it's time to focus on the largest part of your printable Christmas greeting cards: the focusing part of your card. This should be one, but not more than one, of the following: a border, a large image somewhere on the card, or a photo. Never use more than one, unless you are pairing a very small border with a large image, or a very small border with a large photo. Never use two large items, because they'll clash and create a busy look, and never pair an image with a photo, because it can be too distracting.

Adding text to your printable Christmas cards

Most printable Christmas cards will have some sort of message on them. This message is usually one short line that declares something like, "Merry Christmas!", "Happy Holidays!", "Joyous Blessings!", or even "Wishing you a Wonderful Winter". Please note that this one line message is not the same thing as your personalized message. This one line message is large, bold and often found on the front of the card, or even on the inside along the top. The personalized message, on the other hand, may be made up of several lines, and is usually small, personalized for your recipients (quite possibly you'll have a unique personalized message for each recipient), and located on the inside of the printable Christmas cards.

Who should you send printable Christmas cards to?

You will definitely want to send your printable Christmas cards to family members, other loved ones and your close friends. You can always send Christmas cards to more casual acquaintances, business associates and co-workers, but they should not be at the top of your recipient list. Bottom line is that you can send printable Christmas cards to anyone, but make sure that your family members, loved ones and close friends have theirs first!

When should you mail your printable Christmas cards?

To ensure prompt delivery in time for Christmas, make sure that you mail your printable Christmas greeting cards by the first week of December. If you are going to be sending Christmas cards overseas, add a few more weeks to that timeframe. Mail your printable Christmas cards first class, and take them directly to the post office. This ensures that you have the correct postage attached to each of your cards, that they are mailed out right away, and that they aren't handled excessively, which can result in damaged envelopes and bent cards.