So What Really is a Handmade Card?

What exactly is a handmade card? If you buy one what are you looking for? If you make one, how much help do you want? Do you go it alone, or dive into a mix of pre-formed shapes? The Handmade card category is big business “” in both the Craft arena and Greeting Cards and so it covers a variety of card combinations:

1. any hand made -or rather ‘home made’ cards

2. hand-embellished but pre-packaged

3. a card kit that you ‘hand-assembled’ at home.

The breadth of the category makes it more challenging for card retailers to classify for sale stock, but easier for the crafter to pass something essentially shop bought as handmade.

Let’s look at them more fully.

1. The handmade/home-made card

This one gets my thumbs up or rather a thumbs on! Homemade doesn’t mean cheap and tacky. With some excellent courses, books and tutorials out there, there’s no excuse for half-hearted efforts.

This category applies to any hand-made card made from scratch using your own ingenuity, creativity and resourcefulness. It certainly requires the most inventiveness and the likelihood is that a handmade card – made from either casual or carefully selected materials will be truly individual.

Such handmade cards are made with considerable love and attention and usually treasured by the lucky recipient.

2. The hand-embellished card

Interestingly the greeting card industry considers handmade to cover any ‘hand-assisted’ card, often with ‘proud’ features. That includes (but is not limited to) sequins, felt, glitter, ribbon, beads etc. Think base design, on a quality card stock. This background is then topped with a selection of hand-embellishments: anything from tinted photos to faceted beads.

Many publishers use emotive vocabulary such as ‘embossed, sophisticated and elegant’ – to attract customers to purchase what they (both public and customer) consider one step above the mass market crowd.

3. The card kit

Card kits are increasingly popular with all age groups. You know the thing – a complete set of blank cards and envelopes, with inclusive, inviting little thingummies that you hand assemble to create new. You might get some templates as to layout, or be inventive in laying out your surface additions. Card kits include all the embellishments and card blanks you need to create your own handmade card. Detailed instruction may, or may not be included.

There are a number of advantages to card kits: a. everything (and sometimes this means glue too) is included, ready-to-go b. placement and assembly is directed by the materials. instructions come as standard – so no need to be inventive in your use of the materials – unless you want to.

On the other hand, whilst card kits don’t give you too much freedom of choice they can give you a way into testing your creativity. With a great range of kits to choose from it shouldn’t take long to find the right kind for you. A number of sites and stations have tantalising packages to buy and the immediacy of them makes card making fun.

There’s no reason to lessen your sense of achievement in using card kits and they are often one move up from the hand embellished card, and a pre-cursor to going it alone – in free thinking creativity.

Whatever you opt for, making or giving a handmade card shows your willingness to go the extra mile for something extra special. How much or how little you do, depends on the type of card you buy and how handmade you want your handmade card to be.

Perhaps it comes down to semantics. I often used to equate handmade with homemade which meant (to me) a cheap version of shop bought. What I didn’t know then was that handmade really gives you a chance to shine in your particular avenue of creativity. And if you are an aspiring free thinker then the card kit will naturally impose just one too many restrictions on your ability to go with the flow. If however it allows you, with good conscience to say ‘handmade’ with pride then it has great appeal.

The craft market is in boom time right now and card making is enjoying a high too. Hence the number of card making magazines available marrying these two great trends perfectly.

So handmade need not mean a ‘less than’ card. It certainly shouldn’t. Personally I’d favor handmade over bought. Where you step into the realms of making or buying a handmade card lies in your needs, abilities and pocket.

Choose what’s right for you and give or make a handmade card with pride. It will always single your card giving out from the crowd and say much about how you see the act of giving as well as the art of making.

Related Handmade Cards Articles

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Posted by admin on April 4th, 2011 :: Filed under Handmade Cards
Tags :: card, Handmade, Really

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How to Sell Handmade Cards to Create Extra Income

Handmade cards are one of the most popular and intimate ways of sending that special message, be it happy birthday or good luck to that special someone and more and more people are starting to get in on the action.

And why wouldn’t they, the greeting card market in the UK in worth £1.2 billion a year.

The big question is, ‘how do I sell my handmade cards? You might want to sell them because your friends and family think there’re good, you want to create some extra income to help fund your passionate hobby or just to set up a business and one day become one of the big players in the greeting card market

 

The first step we would recommend any crafter to do is to research their local market. Try to find out if anyone else in your local area is selling handmade cards, look at their designs, look at their prices and where they are selling them. You could even go to the extent of phoning them up to see how selling their cards are going for them and how they operate.  Basically gain all the information you think you need to set up and run your own card business.

 

The next step for any handmade card crafter is to do is do what they do best, and that’s create some designs. Ideally you should be looking at a wide range to begin with to see what works and which designs you like. Be creative. That’s one of the main things people like about handmade cards, their originality. However don’t make them too complicated. After all you don’t want to spend four hours making one card, when might have hundreds to make!  Keep in mind (with the exception of Valentine cards) around 80% of cards are purchased by women.

 

The next question is ‘How much should I sell my cards for?’ Set the price too low and you won’t make any money but set the price too high and no one will buy your cards. The first step is to work out how much your cards cost to make. There are numerous costs to consider and it this depends on how far you want to take it. Some common examples of costs that you should consider are: Supplies e.g. Paper, glue, ribbon, envelopes.

 

Equipment – do you need to buy new equipment to make cards? E.g. a laminator, trimmer or a stand to display your cards

Labour – how much are you going to pay yourself?

Postage and packaging e.g. stamps, boxes, petrol if you deliver them.

 

Once you have this information you can then work out a selling price. Pricing strategy is quite important and you should look at the prices of other peoples handmade cards in your area to ensure that yours are similar.

 

Now here comes the fun part, selling your cards. You should by now have about six designs of cards, some stock, know how much each design costs to make and know how much you want to sell them for. There is a number of different ways you can sell your cards and different methods work for different people so don’t give up if you don’t get any sales to begin with.

 

One of the most popular methods of selling handmade cards is at craft fairs and car boot sales. These are good because they are easy to attend and set up costs are relatively cheap. Simply research you local fairs to get more information. Other people will also be selling cards at these fairs so the competition for customers will be quite high. Ensure your stand is presented well, invest in display stands that give good visibility for your cards and are easy for your potential customers to browse. Make sure prices are clearly shown.

 

The internet is a good way to start selling. EBay is the most obvious choice, easy to use and set up therefore making it ideal to sell cards on. However lot of people are selling handmade cards on eBay for very low prices so be prepared not to sell your cards for a high price. Also there are listing fees and commissions to be paid which will take away from your profit.

A more complex way of selling on the internet is to set up your own website. There are a lot of handmade card websites out there so looking at those for inspiration is a good idea. The downside is it will take time and patience and some knowledge of computers will be required.  Selling to Retail outlets is one of the more challenging ways to sell cards, but also has the potential to be very successful.

Keep a few points in mind.

Retailers typically look to sell cards around 2.3 times the purchase price, so if they buy at £1 they will look to sell around £2.30 including the VAT.

 

Retailers are people too, if having a bad day, they’re unlikely to buy your cards, but if in a good mood and like your designs, and the chances are they will give you a try.

It’s not unusual for retailers to request greeting cards be supplied on a sale or return or consignment basis, this involves you supplying the cards and quite often a suitable display stand free of charge and returning at agreed intervals to replenish and charge for any cards sold. An easier way to get space in the shop, but more time consuming and with you carrying all the risk.

 

Even if purchasing outright retails will often expect a display stand to be supplied, normally on the basis of buy £xxx of cards and get a free stand.

The most common reason for rejection is “we don’t have any space”.  Look around as you go in and suggest possible locations (make sure you have display solutions for wall, counters and free standing)

 

Cards tend to sell better when they are well lit so don’t go and put them in that dark corner of the shop. Try to get somewhere near a window with plenty of day light or under strong lighting to really emphasise them.

‘Eye level is buy level’, tries and locates where customers can see easily and not have to bend down or search.

The busier the shop, the more cards are likely to sell. Hairdressers and cafes are easier to get into, but sell less due to limited number of people entering each day.

Have a good pitch for the shop owner, tell them about yourself and take a stock of cards into the shop already in a display stand so they can see how it will look and make it easy for them to say yes

Some more ideas of where you could sell your cards are listed to below.

Craft fairs

Car boot sales

EBay

Own website

Farmer markets

Local shops

Post offices

Family and friends

Cafés

Good luck selling your cards; we hope this guide is helpful.

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Posted by admin on November 22nd, 2010 :: Filed under Handmade Cards
Tags :: Cards, Create, Extra, Handmade, Income, Sell

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