Every year I design our Christmas cards in Powerpoint and upload the design to either Vista Print or Walmart to have them printed, front and back, full color, on cardstock, size 5x7.
(Clicking on any photo will enlarge it!)
I check the big name Christmas Card sites and seriously can not fathom spending over $100 on something that people might just throw away, or put in a box after Christmas never to be looked at again.
This year I designed our cards in Canva.com for free, and had them printed with envelopes for $40.
Let me show you how!
If you don't have an account for Canva, you can sign up for free and I think you should be able to do a trail for Canva Pro for free for a month! Just make sure to cancel your membership before your month is up!
You're going to go into Canva and at the top right corner where it says "What will you design today?" and click custom size.
You're going to set the drop down to in for inches and enter 5 into width and 7 into height, the size of your card.
Then once you open it up, you're going to go over to the left hand side and choose
"Uploads"
From there you need to upload whatever photo you want to be the front of your Christmas Card and extend it on the canvas to fit the full size of the space.
If you have any space on the sides that your photo doesn't fill, you're going to click on the background/canvas then once the outline of your card is highlighted purple, you're going to click on the "background color" box which is near the top of the design space next to where it says 'animate'.
See how the sides are now red like the scarf and ornaments?
Now you can leave it like this, or you can add "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" etc.
I added a two separate text boxes, one that said "Merry" and then one that said "Christmas"
You do need canva pro for that font but there are plenty that come with the free version!
Now you want to make the back of your card!
You're going to click "+ Add page" that's under the card, and it should already be the same color as the front of the card background.
Go back to upload and upload another photo that you want and center it slightly towards the top of the card so that you have room at the bottom for a little message and your family name!
I like to add a border to mine and I choose a color from the photo to tie it all together. Just go to the top of the design space again and click the lines next to animate. Add a line border and I like the border weight to be around 8-10. Then right next to the border line button is the color for the border, change that to a photo color of your liking!
Under the photo, you can add a text box.
I keep it short and sweet.
Then add another smaller text box and write "Love, The _________ Family" or whatever you want!
Once your card is all done, make sure everything is aligned how you like it!
After you're done with both the front and back, you're going to download them!
Go up to the right hand corner, click share, then make sure your size is a bit larger than the setting it is set to automatically, the bigger you save the files, the better as they won't upload blurry when you want to print them. I save as a PNG file and save it to my desktop so I can find it easily to make the cards for printing.
For the past few years I've used Walmart because I like that they have same day printing and they include the envelopes!
Go to Walmart.com and click on Services, go to Photo Services, and then Cards.
Scroll down until you find "Upload Your Design"
Click cardstock, the trim you want, the quantity, and then Create Now
Change the orientation to portrait from landscape. You'll do that by going to design and then layouts.
Then you're going to upload your front design first. Make sure it fills the entire space and is straight.
Next delete one of the upload sections on the back so that theirs only 1 and upload your back of card design. Make sure it fills the space completely and is aligned straight and center.
Next you're ready to order! I always do same day pick up but if you choose delivery it may be cheaper depending on how much shipping is and if you have time! I tend to wait until last minute to do things!
When you pick up your cards from Walmart, check them before you leave. This year I had to make them reprint because the alignment was off. This is the first time it has happened and I've order "Upload your own design"cards from Walmart several times.
I will also say that these are not fancy but I still think they are nice and serve their purpose!
Be sure to bookmark this for next year if you've already made your cards for 2023 and follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for more DIY ideas!
Comments