Greeting Cards for Kids

For a fun and friendly craft, have your kids design and print greeting cards for holidays, birthdays and other special events. With a little help from you, your kids can design greeting cards and get them professionally printed for a neat treat friends and family will keep. Imagine the pride on your youngsters' faces when they visit Grandma and see the greeting card they designed tacked to the wall ... Now, get to work preparing!

Prepare

OK, so most kids don't know how to use professional graphic design software but that doesn't mean they can't design greeting cards. All you need is a digital camera and some crafts. Some ideas include:

• construction paper
• finger paint or watercolors
• yarn
• buttons
• photos of your family or children (if you want a collage)
• glitter
• glue/paste
• scissors
• markers/crayons
• anything else!

Cut your construction paper into a 6-inch by 8-inch sheet (you can get smaller sizes, but the larger size leaves more creative space). This will be the front of your greeting cards.

Create

Next, have your kids create whatever they want on their construction paper "canvas" with their craft items. Let your kids' personalities shine through so they can make them however they'd like. The sky's the limit! (TIP: It's a good idea to have your kids make their greeting cards without the recipients' names on them, since they'll be going to more than one person. Aunt Shirley might appreciate the humor in an "I love your Grandma" card from her five-year-old - then again, she might not).

Capture

Once your kids have finished creating their greeting card design, snap a high-resolution digital photo of the design. Make sure you frame the entire greeting card in the shot. You might want to take several shots in different light levels to make sure you get a good, clean picture.

Upload and print

Put your photos from your digital camera onto your computer and pick the best. You might have to do some minor editing in Photoshop or another photo editing program. If you do have Photoshop, get a free greeting card layout template from PsPrint so you can place your image on it (not necessary, but it makes things easier). Your finished greeting card will actually be 5-inch by 7-inch, but we've had you take the larger photo to account for bleeds. Line up your greeting card on your template and log on to PsPrint, where you can order as few as 50 or as many as 10,000-plus greeting cards to send to family and friends (starting at around $45 for 50). You can choose between paper stocks and finishes, and also order envelopes to fit. Your kids will be thrilled when they see their professionally printed creations come in the mail, and they'll have a blast sending each and every one out the door to their loved ones. And, of course, their loves ones will be just as touched to be the recipients of special holiday creations handcrafted by very special children.