Cardmaking
Encyclopedia
Craft
A craft is a branch of a profession that requires some particular kind of skilled work. In historical sense, particularly as pertinent to the Medieval history and earlier, the term is usually applied towards people occupied in small-scale production of goods.-Development from the past until...
of hand-making greeting card
Greeting card
A greeting card is an illustrated, folded card featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards are usually given on special occasions such as birthdays, Christmas or other holidays, they are also sent to convey thanks or express other feeling. Greeting cards,...
s. Many people with interests in allied crafts such as scrapbooking
Scrapbooking
Scrapbooking is a method for preserving personal and family history in the form of a scrapbook. Typical memorabilia include photographs, printed media, and artwork. Scrapbook albums are often decorated and frequently contain extensive journaling...
and stamping have begun to use their skills to start making handmade cards. This has contributed to cardmaking becoming a popular hobby.
Traditional high street
High Street
High Street, or the High Street, is a metonym for the generic name of the primary business street of towns or cities, especially in the United Kingdom. It is usually a focal point for shops and retailers in city centres, and is most often used in reference to retailing...
stores have begun to devote an increasing amount of their floorspace to handmade cards. Handmade products are now being seen by retailers as a way to increase margins, and handmade cards are no exception. This is particularly the case as mass-produced printed greeting cards have been faced with competition from electronic greeting cards. Over seven billion greeting cards were sent in the US alone last year; greeting cards are a multi-billion-dollar business.
In contrast, hundreds of small businesses have been set up by avid crafters keen to make a return on their cardmaking efforts. Many of these are taking advantage of the low setup costs of web-based selling and the wide customer-base of auction sites like eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
. Many others continue to sell their creations at craft fairs, markets and fêtes. Others use their cardmaking skills to turn a profit in the wedding planning market making handmade wedding invitation
Wedding invitation
A wedding invitation is a letter asking the recipient to attend a wedding. It is typically written in formal, third-person language and mailed five to eight weeks before the wedding date....
s and favors.
There are many different variations of handmade cards including decoupage, more commonly known as 3D, where a design is printed a number of times, then various areas of the design are cut and layered on top of each other using double-sided sticky foam squares to mount the layers together to create the 3D effect making a very attractive greeting card.
History
The custom of sending greeting cards can be traced back to the ancient ChineseChina
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, who exchanged messages of good will to celebrate the New Year, and to the early Egyptians
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, who conveyed their greetings on papyrus
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
scrolls.
By the early 15th century, handmade paper greeting cards were being exchanged in Europe. The Germans are known to have printed New Year's greetings from woodcuts as early as 1400, and handmade paper Valentines were being exchanged in various parts of Europe in the early to mid-15th century.
However, by the 1850s, the greeting card had been transformed from a relatively expensive, handmade and hand-delivered gift to a popular and affordable means of personal communication, due largely to advances in printing and mechanization.
This trend continued, followed by new trends like Christmas card
Christmas card
A Christmas card is a greeting card sent as part of the traditional celebration of Christmas in order to convey between people a range of sentiments related to the Christmas and holiday season. Christmas cards are usually exchanged during the weeks preceding Christmas Day by many people in Western...
s, the first of which appeared in published form in London in 1843 when Sir Henry Cole
Henry Cole
Sir Henry Cole was an English civil servant and inventor who facilitated many innovations in commerce and education in 19th century Britain...
hired artist John Calcott Horsley to design a holiday card that he could send to his friends and acquaintances. Technical developments like color lithography
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
in 1930 propelled the manufactured greeting card industry forward.
During the 1980s, the trend began to turn, with consumers increasing looking for greeting cards that were differentiated from the standard offering. In the late 1990s the market was clearly beginning to separate in to three different segments:
- handmade and premium cards
- mass-manufactured cards
- e-cards
Materials
Common cardmaking materials include: cardstock, stencils, markers, vellumVellum
Vellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used...
, tissue paper
Tissue paper
Tissue paper is a lightweight paper or, light crêpe paper. Tissue can be made both from virgin and recycled paper pulp.-Properties:Key properties are: strength, absorbency, basis weight, thickness , brightness, stretch, appearance and comfort....
, glue
Glue
This is a list of various types of glue. Historically, the term "glue" only referred to protein colloids prepared from animal flesh. The meaning has been extended to refer to any fluid adhesive....
, rulers and t-square
T-square
A T-square is a technical drawing instrument used by draftsmen primarily as a guide for drawing horizontal lines on a drafting table. It may also guide a triangle to draw vertical or diagonal lines. Its name comes from the general shape of the instrument where the horizontal member of the T slides...
s, rickrack, foil
Foil
Foil may refer to:Materials* Foil , a quite thin sheet of metal, usually manufactured with a rolling mill machine* Metal leaf, a very thin sheet of decorative metal* Aluminium foil, a type of wrapping for food...
, sequins, beads, ribbon
Ribbon
A ribbon or riband is a thin band of material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily for binding and tying. Cloth ribbons, most commonly silk, are often used in connection with clothing, but are also applied for innumerable useful, ornamental and symbolic purposes...
, and more.
Other materials that can be used in cardmaking are brads, eyelets, tea bag medallions, and buttons. Brads can be used to hold the four corners of one piece of cardstock on top of another to create a layered effect. Eyelets can be used to draw a piece of string or ribbon from one side of the card to another. Tea bag medallions are a type of origami that makes a wonderful decoration for the front of a card. Pretty shaped buttons make nice additions to a design that is stamped on the card.
See also
- Arts and crafts
- Greeting cardGreeting cardA greeting card is an illustrated, folded card featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards are usually given on special occasions such as birthdays, Christmas or other holidays, they are also sent to convey thanks or express other feeling. Greeting cards,...
s