I have chosen to design my own greetings cards. It is becoming a very popular hobby and it encompasses writing, composition, colour co-ordination, photographic skills as well as being an aid to keeping the brain ticking over.
At my age, I have to tell you, this is an added bonus!
Knowing where to start can be complicated, but I first searched the internet to see if any greetings card companies were looking for contributors.
Most of them these days seem to employ their own artistic staff, but there are still one or two that will accept unsolicited contributions. You may have to search around their home page, but usually in small print somewhere, it may say submissions or artists contact us.
Clicking on that link will usually take you to details of what they expect and their payment rates. If you decide to go down this route, I would strongly advise you to try & find some of their published cards in the shops and check out what type of greetings they publish.
It would be a total waste of your time and theirs if you submitted a risque, adult card to say a company that specialized in religious verses!
I have decided to try a POD or Print On Demand company called Greeting Card Universe.
It's a relatively easy way of designing and selling my own greeting cards and being able to have a totally free online card store that reaches a global buyers market. There is also a large amount of help and information for the beginner together with an Artists Forum if you need to ask anything.
I like taking photographs, so I take my little digital camera everywhere in the hope that something unusual or humerous will catch my eye.
I can then download the images using Picasa or something similar, or even directly to my picture files.
That's the easy part, but how do I resize them or add text?
There are many photo and graphics editors to purchase, such as Adobe Photoshop, but if like me, these are a bit complicated, then I would recommend you go for some free software. I use Fly Free photo editing, because it does what I want, simply, and without taking up masses of memory on my pc.
GCU ask that images are in jpg form, sized 5" x 7" and using RGB colours. Fly Free has all the facilities to accomodate these and as long as the image is of a good standard, I don't mess around with it apart from putting some text on the front of the image. This is then downloaded at "manage cards" on my GCU store administration page and it will give me the image quality. I don't use anything that is not on the high side of "good" or "best".
I always insert a small verse or sentiment as this helps to sell the card, choose the category and then it's a case of waiting for the submission to be accepted.
This can take a few days, and sometimes it will come back with a note from the reviewer, but it's usually because I've chosen the wrong category!
Then it's a case of waiting for the card to (hopefully) sell and GCU to make the payment.
It's not a get rich quick scheme, I don't expect to be buying a villa on the south coast anytime soon, but perhaps over the course of a year, I may earn enough to help with fuelling the car. If not, I'll be seeing the bank manager to ask for a second mortgage!
I am getting better with practice and although this is a very simplified overview of what I'm doing, I hope it will give others the encouragement to have a go at what I find to be a very interesting, fulfilling and absorbing hobby.
I'll keep you updated as I go along.
