Colorizing CHRISTMAS with Ready-to-Color Christmas Greeting Cards

Colorable Christmas Cards in the Color the Carols BIG COMBO Christmas Gift SetCHRISTMAS IS BUSY

Christmas is coming. Oh, don’t we know it! One look at the calendar got me thinking about our family’s Christmas card list – not an email list, mind you, but an old fashioned list of names and addresses. This paper list brings together people we like to bless with a genuine paper Christmas card. That, in case you don’t know, is the kind of card that required a tree to sacrifice its life, so it’s a special thing.

It is astounding how quickly people ditched this tradition of sending paper cards in lieu of a generic email one-liner sent at the last possible moment. Yes, postage isn’t free (but you could trade one cup of Starbucks coffee this year for quite a few stamps). Yes, some places have unreliable postal services (and perhaps some of your greeting cards may not be delivered, but what is life without a wee bit of risk). No, you don’t have less time in the day than anyone else. Everyone everywhere is BUSY. (If you are not busy most of the time, take a moment to share your secret for extra hours in the day in the comment section below – I know we all need to find more time in the day.) Here is my challenge for you this Christmas: how about embracing a new thought this festive season?

Consider this idea: This year I will spare a few minutes to send a physical greeting card to someone I care about. Is that a crazy idea?

READY-TO-COLOR CHRISTMAS GREETING CARDS

For those creative folk who have a few extra minutes to invest in others, as well as in their own sense of well-being,  ready-to-color greeting cards are ideal. Buying a few packs of ready-to-color cards should definitely go on your “Christmas preparation list”. (Santa could use an efficient “list” person like you on his staff!)

Ready-to-color Christmas cards are a lot like traditional greeting cards. The big difference is that the color in the feature illustration is applied by you, and not by a printing press. You can use paint, markers, or pencils to add color to printed coloring cards. With digital coloring cards, you will use software to fill spaces in the digital card with color, and then you can print your finished work.

NEW CHRISTMAS DESIGNS

Recently, I was busy working on a new range of coloring card designs when a customer approached me to ask for Christmas versions of the cards. I had not initially planned to release any coloring Christmas cards this year, but the customer’s request got me thinking about how Christmas coloring cards could be more than just greeting cards. I imagined how a Christmas card coloring activity could provide hours of fun for families, friends, church groups and more. So I put aside my planned designs for a while, and improvised some Christmas designs for cards. Zisubu Artique now stocks sets of coloring Christmas cards.

PRINT AND COLOR GREETING CARDS

For those who like to do all their crafting from scratch, there are the “print and color” Christmas cards. You simply print the PDF card pages on cardstock – each page has two cards – and you are on your way to making hundreds of Christmas greeting cards (or just a few, if your Christmas list isn’t too long).

Not everyone likes to wrestle with their home printer – I know mine is rather temperamental about processing card stock. (Some days is plays nicely, and others it makes a big mess of the card projects I try to print.) If you don’t want to waste time loading cardstock one page at a time, printing, cutting the cards, going shopping for envelopes, and then FINALLY sitting down to relax with a coloring activity, the “ready to color” Christmas cards are perfect for you. The price of the “ready to color” cards includes all the craft work, so all that is left for you is to open your box of crayons and start coloring.

START A NEW TREND

Start a new trend in your family or business this year. Send Christmas cards that are colored by your family, your friends, or your business’ staff members. Or send an uncolored coloring card with a little note that encourages the recipient to sit back, relax, and enjoy coloring as they count down to Christmas Day.

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Original Art Greeting Cards: Why Use Them?

Christmas. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Graduations. Hallmark has them covered, or so we thought. Store-bought greeting cards have a lot to offer: vivid color, cute one-liners, reminders to add extra postage to the envelope, and quite often a rather hefty price tag. But the truth is that the card you buy at the store is one of thousands of identical cards, some of which are sold all over the planet. In no way is the card in your hands unique, even if it does aptly express what you would like to communicate. Of course, sometimes it simply does not manage to say what you are trying to say. You spend an hour browsing the card rack only to conclude that nothing is quite what you want: either the picture is great, but the words are cheesy, or the words are beautiful and heartfelt, but the picture is just not appropriate for the person you want to give the card to.

When store-bought cards do not give you a perfect fit for the message you have to share, it’s time to widen your search net. What are your options? You could write a letter – but that wouldn’t have a fun picture to go with it. You could make your own greeting card – but what if all your paints are dry, you are too busy, or you don’t feel the tickle of the creative finger? You could make a phone call to communicate your message – but that wouldn’t qualify as a heart-warming, written greeting. Yet another option (and one of my favorites) is to invest in a hand-crafted greeting card that perfectly suits the recipient. You know the person you are buying a card for – invest in a one-of-a-kind card that will float their boat.

Hand-crafted greeting cards are widely available on international craft platforms such as ETSY. Artists, scrapbookers, and print boutiques around the world all have something to offer you that will put store-bought greeting cards in the shade. I want to put the spotlight on one category of hand-made cards, simply because these cards are one of my areas of interest. Original illustrated greeting cards – they offer fresh designs on cards that are guaranteed to be unique.

So why should you invest in an original art card? Let me start by saying that if store-bought cards meet your needs then the answer to this question is not for you. Definitely stay with what works for you. But if store-bought cards fall a little short of your expectations, it makes sense to spend roughly the same amount of money on a greeting card that is more than a greeting card.

Original art cards may be collaged, hand painted or illustrated directly on the card surface, or have an original drawing or painting attached to the front of the card. ACEO greeting cards are a good example of the latter type. In an ACEO-styled card, the art card is constructed by attaching a small artwork (ACEO) to the front of a blank card. I have recently begun work on a series of greeting cards that fall into the former category: illustrations done directly on the card surface. I enjoy monotone, so for this series I have chosen to work predominantly in black ink on a white card surface. The style is reminiscent of adult coloring books with detailed patterns, abstraction, and a central theme for each card. (In fact, I actually encourage my customers to color the card and envelope if they want to contribute their own brand of creativity to the card.)

By purchasing an original art card, you are purchasing a small work of art which in turn becomes a vehicle for your greeting or message. Wouldn’t you like to open your mailbox (the physical one in your front yard) and find a greeting card that is entirely unique – not a mass-production print or even a limited edition print, but something a real person invested significant time into? You can run your finger over the surface of the card and feel the texture of the media used to create the card. You might even spot real life smudges or slips of the pen that have not been fixed by a computer. You would be holding art in your hands. Perhaps not a grand piece you might add to your million dollar art collection, but art – small and unusual art – nonetheless.

If you have something worth saying by writing it down, why settle for some run-of-the-mill e-card or a glossy generic issue from your local Walmart? Put your words inside a card that the recipient will look at more than once – they might even hold onto the card (and your words), if they recognize the value of what they have in their hands. (And of course, there is always the chance that the inexpensive art card you paid a few dollars for is created by an artist that becomes famous during your lifetime. Wouldn’t you want to be able to say you still own or gifted one of their small artworks?) An original art card takes your words and upgrades their value by presenting them in a way that will be entirely unique to that moment. It’s a double delight gift: your thoughtful words and an original piece of art.

If you are interested in viewing some of my original art cards, please visit my ETSY store.

 

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