Card Making

The craft of making handmade greeting cards is known as card making. The card making idea of sending greeting cards has been in existence since ancient times; the Chinese people exchanged messages of goodwill to celebrate New Year; the Egyptians sent their greetings on papyrus rolls. But later on, in the beginning of the 1400s, handmade paper greeting cards made of woodcuts came to be exchanged in Europe and Germany for New Year and Valentineís Days. However, by the mid-1800s, handmade greeting cards became an affordable way of personal communicationóthanks to the development of printing machines. Technical advancements like color lithography, in 1930, also provided a boost to the greeting card industry.

By the 1990s, the industry had begun to trifurcate into different segments, namely, handmade and premium cards, mass-manufactured cards and e-cards. Many high-street stores dedicate some amount of floor space to handmade greeting cards; many retailers view the selling of mass-manufactured greetings as a way to increase margins. Mass-manufactured greeting cards give tough competition to electronic greeting cards, which are also popularly known as e-cards as they a faster and more affordable way of sending greetings to relatives residing far away, in other cities, metros or countries.

Nowadays, many schools teach small children how to make handmade cards; they also conduct fairs and exhibitions of their creations. Cards can be made using different card making crafts like stamping larger images, embossing and more. Card making supply is available at many stores and online retail sites as well.