How to Make Christmas Photo Cards
Christmas photo cards are a creative way to personalize your holiday cards. They can easily be made with a computer and a home printer. Here's how.
What You Need
To make your own Christmas photo cards you will need card stock or premade photo card stock that you can buy in the office supply section. You will also need a picture, and idea of what you want to say on the card, and envelopes.
The Picture
First, a picture needs to be chosen for the Christmas photo cards. The picture you choose needs to be clear, sharp and closely cropped. The picture can be of your family, your pet dressed in a cute Christmas outfit, or your children dressed in their Sunday best. Scan the picture into your computer. Crop it, adjust colors, and contrast as needed with a photo editor like Photoshop. A good one called The GIMP is offered free on the internet.
Layout
Next, plan what you want your card to look like. You can design one from scratch or around templates that are provided with your word processor or photo editor. Microsoft Works has some good card templates.
Decide if you want the card to be a post card or a folding card and choose the greeting that will go on the card. This can be as simple as a "Merry Christmas!" or as detailed as a holiday letter.
Your photo will be on the front of the card. Any text or greeting will usually go on the flip-side of a postcard or on the inside fold of a folding card.
You may want to add some Christmas clip art to your Christmas photo cards. Free clip art can be found on the internet and many word processors come with nice clip art.
The Envelope
You may want to print a design on the envelope to match your Christmas photo cards to add a nice, finishing touch. This can be done by setting your word processor template to envelope and entering the size of the envelope.
Printing
When printing your card make sure that your printer is set to high-resolution color printing for card stock. If you are printing a folded card, make sure to set your printer to double-sided printing. Also, make sure that you follow your printer's directions for printing two sided paper so that your Christmas photo cards will not print up-side down!
Finish
To finish your card; fold it, add your signature, and mail. Happy Printing!
