Months ago, when I started my Etsy shop, several people suggested that I make photo notecards. I have spent the past few months trying to decide how I would want to go about doing that. The first avenue I looked into was having my photos professionally printed on notecards. However, I wasn’t very pleased with the options that I found, and ulimately realized that for me, unless I am involved in the making process, I wouldn’t get much satisfaction from selling something made entirely by someone else, with my only part being supplying the photograph. In addition, to get the quality I wanted, I would have to order large quantities of individual prints, which was a greater financial commitment than I was looking for. My other hope was to use high quality recycled materials for my cards and envelopes.
(Susan and Queen Anne notecard set)
After a bit of searching I found exactly what I was looking for. Lovely blank notecards and envelopes made from 25% hemp and 75% recycled paper (post consumer.) The outside has a very nice texure, the inside is smooth for writing on, and there are pretty little flecks of hemp throughout the paper.
I have my photos printed in a matte finish and then hand crop them, giving them rounded corners, before mounting them on the front of the cards. I use a custom stamp to print my copyright information on the back of the cards (which is really fun for some reason!)
I ordered a limited number of blank cards and created a big custominzed set for my dear Aunt Genie to get her approval first! She loves them and has been sending them to family and friends already. I love that I am able to create something that might show up in someone’s mailbox and make them smile!
I have had a bunch of my photos printed to see how they look on the notecards, and those that I am going to make available for custom orders are in a Flickr set that can be seen here:
In addition I have created two themed sets of four notecards each: Susan and Queen Anne which includes the four above photos,
And Barn Cats
which includes the four following photos:
For now I have four custom sets of notecards available, in addition to one Susan and Queen Anne set, and one Barn Cats set.
All in my shop!
