Hand made cards

Getting the right card for someone can be a difficult task. Either the design is not quite what you are looking for or the message inside doesn't convey what you want to say. You can spend hours searching from shop to shop to find just the right card to suite the person. Often the result is a compromise.

Thursday was Pamela's birthday. We noticed that a growing number of the cards that Pam received were hand made. At one time, a hand made card might have indicated that the person was too miserly to spend a few bob on a shop bought card but not so now. The cards that Pam got were lovingly crafted requiring much thought, effort and attention to detail on the part of the senders.

In our opinion, the standard of the cards that people make has improved tremendously. The creators have obviously honed their skills and sought out interesting papers and other artifacts to use for their work.

Actually, the first card I ever sent Pam was hand made. It was for Valentines's Day 1967. I created a composition of hearts in various shades of reds and carefully mounted the finished result on card. I even made the envelope. For our first Christmas, I wrapped my presents in layers of tissue paper folded into a variety of designs. I suppose I hoped that the fancy wrapping would make up for the fact that I could only afford economical presents on a student grant.

More recently my children used to wrap the presents for me. Although the gifts were more expensive than in my student days, I felt guilty about having someone else wrap them for me. Not as guilty as my father should have felt though when he got me to buy cards for my mother, write and post them as if they were from him.

With a reasonable level of computer skills and a plethora of programs at my disposal, it is perfectly possible for me to churn out cards galore. Rather than do that, each Christmas I create a special card for a few friends and relatives and then have them printed by VistaPrint. I also spend some time creating a newsletter which we send out either as a printed copy or as a PDF attached to an email.