Illustrated Cards

I had a bit of a revelation last week, after years of making cards for the first time I made entirely printed cards. It seems insane that I never did it before, I saw other people doing it but never made the connection in my brain to do it myself, which is silly considering how much I like drawing. I think it was all the drawings I've been doing for the canvas bags that spurred on the idea.

I did a bunch of pencil sketches, I have a graphic pad but nothing beats drawing on paper with a pencil. I then scanned them in and set about colouring in the drawings. (To do this in Photoshop go to layer options for your drawing layer, in the drop down menu choose multiply. This makes the layer see through so all you can see is the drawing but not the white, make a new layer behind this and colour on this layer, it's like using sheets of ascetate). I chose to put them on a sparing white background and let the drawings speak for themselves. I may experiment with other layouts down the line, but at the moment I like this aesthetic.

I had tonnes of 5x5" blank cards left over from Christmas, and I brought these to the printer but he was unable to use them. Instead he printed on card and I folded them myself afterwards. I was able to use the envelopes from these packs. Down the line I'll have to source envelopes to make it more cost effective than buying card packs just for the envelopes.

I found at the stall some people were really put off by a €4 price tag for a handmade card so that's why these printed cards are great, I'm charging €2.50 each or 5 for €10. I'll also list them in my Etsy shop as they can be reproduced easily so it's worth the effort to take photos and write listings for them. I'll also be making a range of As Gaeilge cards too, as the collaged ones have been incredibly popular.

To see the whole collection so far just head over to this Facebook album.

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