the thrifty crafter

I adore photo greeting cards during the holidays.  Being the crafter that I am, I tend to shy away from the printed, postcard variety you can order and like to get photos printed myself and dress them up.  This year, I had 4×6 pictures printed at Costco after using Photoshop to add a festive greeting, purchased green cardstock from Michaels on a super 4 for $1 deal and bought value packs of cards from Target to use as a base – 18 cards for only $5! The cards themselves were a little silly, but had a gorgeous, bright red background that I knew would work well with the photo I chose.  Trying to make your own cards from scratch with colored envelopes and cards from craft stores can get a bit more costly, so starting with the value packs is a great way to make your holiday cards your own without spending a lot of dough.

Here’s what you need:

• boxed cards with good background color or print
• coordinating cardstock
• printed photos
• photo mounting squares (Big Lots has ’em cheap, cheap!)
• paper trimmer or ruler and scissors

Here’s what you do:

1. Use your paper trimmer to cut out three 4.5 x 6.5 inch rectangles from each  sheet of 12×12 cardstock.

   

2. Use photo mounting squares to affix photo to cardstock, then cardstock to face of card.

   

3. Add your own personal greeting, sign, seal and deliver!

Cost: $18 for 36 cards! Only $0.50 per card…not bad! Photos were $5 at Costco, cards were $10 total at Target and cardstock for 36 cards was $3 at Michaels.