The 20-Cent Greeting Card

Advertising Disclosure: When you buy something by clicking links on our site, we may earn a small commission, but it never affects the products or services we recommend.

Woman checking her mailbox
Audrey Saracco / Shutterstock.com

My mom taught me to buy greeting cards at the dollar store. She says she refuses to pay a threefold markup for a Hallmark logo when it’s the thought that counts. And most people toss cards after reading them anyway.

Sometimes I take her advice. Other times I take it a step farther.

When I discovered my local Barnes & Noble sold plain photos slapped onto plain white pieces of folded stock paper as $5 greeting cards, I realized I could make better cards myself for even less than mom pays. They come out to about 20 cents apiece.

You might find greeting cards for less if you bought in bulk, but handmade cards have a personal touch and sometimes a story behind them. That doesn’t meant they have to look homemade, though. When my mom gave one of my cards to my boyfriend as a birthday card, he didn’t believe it was homemade – or that it was made by his girlfriend.

Here’s the “recipe”…

Time required

About 30 seconds

Ingredients

  • Image Not Available
    Image Not Available

    Blank card with envelope: I’m currently using a box of DCWV cards like this one. The cards are colored and textured on the outside but white and flat on the inside so you can write on them.

  • Photo: Don’t pay more than 9 cents for a 4×6 print. That’s the standard price through a service like Snapfish. Drugstore services like Walgreens Photo and CVS Photo often call anything from 10 to 12 cents a deal, but sometimes offer actual deals if you’re willing to buy a few dozen prints.
  • Two-sided adhesive: Double-stick tape generally works and is probably the cheapest option, although I favor a brand of photo tape like this one meant for scrapbooks because it’s very thin, yet holds. The roll has 81 feet, so I figure it’ll make hundreds of cards.
  • Paper cutter (optional): You may want to trim the photo.
  • Corner punch (optional): I use a simple punch that rounds off the corners of my photos, which I think gives the card a more polished look. But you can get as fancy as you want.
  • Embellishments (optional): I’ve added googly eyes to a photo of a fanciful bug I took in the Amazon rain forest, for example. You can get as creative as you’d like.

Directions

  1. Buy any ingredients you don’t already have. I recommend getting the cards, tape, paper cutter, punch, and embellishments at a brick-and-mortar craft store like Michaels or A.C. Moore, which offer printable coupons worth at least 40 percent off one regular-priced item almost weekly. My cards came out to about 10 cents apiece that way.
  2. Pick out a photo to match the occasion and a card to match the photo.
  3. Trim the photo if needed.
  4. Punch the corners of the photo.
  5. Apply the tape to the back of the photo.
  6. Stick the photo to the card. Especially if the photo has a glossy finish, this can be difficult to do without leaving fingerprints on the photo, so I wrap a cloth meant for cleaning eyeglasses around my fingers before pressing down on the photo. A T-shirt could also work – any lightweight fabric that wouldn’t scratch.
  7. Add any embellishments.
Image Not Available
Image Not Available

Got a better (or cheaper) idea? We’d love to hear it. Leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

Get smarter with your money!

Want the best money-news and tips to help you make more and spend less? Then sign up for the free Money Talks Newsletter to receive daily updates of personal finance news and advice, delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our free newsletter today.