There are hundreds of ways to make homemade greeting cards from downloading free printable templates on craft websites to using software like Publisher to create birthday and Easter cards in minutes. For a truly unique and special card, however, use a digital camera to take photos of flowers then print the digital images to put onto greeting cards which can then be framed afterwards to capture the wonders of nature.
This article shows how easy it is to make homemade greeting cards with digital flower photos, no publishing software or downloading required.
Take Flower Photos with a Digital Camera
The first step is to take some good quality photos of flowers with a digital camera. Even the cheapest digital cameras have at least 3 megapixels so set the camera to its highest pixel setting and start looking for suitable shots. Those lucky enough to live near the country can just go for a walk to find beautiful wild flowers like orchids that make perfect subjects for photography.
Those living in the city should head for the nearest park to see what is in bloom or even a neighbor’s garden, if there are no flowers in their own garden. If available, use the digital macro setting on the camera for close up shots of each flower. The images in the pictures below, for example, were taken using the digital macro settings on a Canon Sureshot SD750 digital camera.
Make Birthday and Easter Cards at Home
The next step is to load the images onto a home computer and pick the most attractive ones to use on a greeting card. Use the digital camera software to sharpen the images for best clarity then save them to a file on the computer so they can be located easily.
To make a handmade greeting card, simply open up a simple text editor like Notepad (part of Windows software), type a greeting card message near the top right of the page such as Happy Birthday or Happy Easter, select landscape format (so that the text appears on the correct side of the page) and print a sample page to check the positioning of the text. Be sure to de-select any automated text for title and page number so that only the greeting card message remains. Then insert some greeting card paper into the printer.
Greeting Card Paper
For birthday cards or any other special occasion card like Easter, the paper needs to be stiff enough to stand up on its own. Popular greeting card paper from companies like Hewlett Packard is often glossy, intended for printing photos onto cards. But the only part of the paper that needs to be glossy is the actual photograph; the rest is just plain card so look for the cheapest good quality card stock available, often supplied in economy packs of 50 -100 sheets from online stationers.
Then simply print out the card followed by a photo print sized 4 x 6.” Use photo glossy paper for the best results then stick the photograph underneath the greeting title for a simple yet thoughtful homemade card.
Cheap Digital Photo Printing
Home printer ribbons can be expensive, especially when trial and error results in several wasted sheets before perfection is achieved. To save money, go to a local photography shop, give them a CD containing the digital images and use their in-house laser printers to get high quality digital flower photo prints. Or print digital photos online from as little as 5 pence per print from sites like Foto or Bonusprint.
DIY Easter Cards
Moms and grand moms always love handmade greeting cards. Share the beauty of nature using pretty flower photos to create elegant yet simple birthday and Easter cards using just a digital camera, a computer and some card paper.
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Also of interest for those with lots of digital photos may be Create Custom Photo Calendars for Unique Gifts, Make a Photo Book with Free Photo Book Software, Cute Cat Christmas Photo Card Ideas and, for a gift to go with the Easter card, Buy an Easter Chocolate Gift Online.
Helen Smeaton - Helen Smeaton runs a cycling and hiking business and is also a freelance writer and web designer. Read her profile for more information
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