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Category Archives: Free Online Greeting Cards

Free Greeting Cards – What Do They Really Say

Google has over 28 million results when you search for free greeting cards.

This is a segment of the market that has grown dramatically over the past few years. Free greeting cards come in various forms including online greeting cards, free ecards, animated cards as well as a few companies offering free printable greeting cards.

Their growth is simple. The cards are free. They are quick to deliver and it’s easy to do. People who frequent such services like these facilities as well as the selection of what’s on offer. Most free greeting card service companies offer a huge selection including animated and or flash cards.

Such cards appear impressive when they arrive in your inbox but can be subject to email deliverability dangers as well. Spam filters today can be set up with numerous messages that stop well intentioned card mail from ever getting into your inbox.

123 Greeting cards and Blue Mountain are the biggest providers offering their potential clients thousands of free cards to choose from. As well as potentially having deliverabilty issues, free birthday cards can also contain advertising from such providers as 123 Greetings. While most people don’t mind supporting such companies by allowing their advertising to appear (actually you don’t get a choice), there is a danger of your recipient moving away from your well meant card and them spending more time at the card company site. I’m sure they appreciated your card but when some people discover these cards can have music, flashes and animation, the temptation is too much. Your card is deleted and it’s ‘hello’ free cards. Let’s hope you are on your recipients return list.

While flashiness matbe a novelty, quality is something that shouldn’t be. most free online cards including ecards look great on your computer but lose their quality once printed. You shoulkd never attempt to send yourself a free card and then print it with the mindset of posting it to friends or business colleagues.

Paper quality is generally inferior to printed greeting cards offered in card shops. Free online cards while quick and easy to use can also send a message to your recipient that they are part of a mass mail out. Feelings of not being special are also generally felt. If you are wanting to build business relationships, you should nver send free greeting cards. It says to the potential customer that they are not special and you can do without their business. Generally that is not the message you want to convey, but your cheapness has already conveyed that message sublimonally.

If you are wanting to mend a personal relationship or just enhance it, free cards can be delivered quickly but once again show your lack of care.

Personally I avoid such cards. I prefer to express my heartfelt messages by printed cards that I can personalize and where I have spent time and money carefully selecting the correct card for the recipient in mind. In doing so I know they feel special and appreciate my efforts. They also enjoy receiving cards the ‘old fashioned’ way – by mail.

Send free greeting cards if you are in a hurry. If you are about to miss a deadline, like somebody’s birthday, then perhaps send a free card.But if you really want to make a statement of “I care” spend time and money and send a physical greeting card.

Hallmark Cards And American Greeting Cards – Convenient Yes, Personalized No

A Greeting card is just a small piece of paper printed or hand painted or handcrafted with printed or handwritten message to convey your feelings to someone. Nowadays there are so many ways we can express ourselves, our feelings to someone such as a SMS, an email massage, an ecard, a fax message or just a telephone/cell phone. But still Greeting Cards are being used for this purpose. Some people think to such an extent that why to spend money and time in purchasing and sending a greeting card, instead why not send a SMS, so cheap and time saving option!!!

Nowadays what matters in every field is the presentation. Greetings card is also one of the means of presenting your feelings. I would say that the Greetings card is an esthetic looking packing of your feelings/expressions so that the recipient feels delighted and honoured.

Hence Greeting cards can be used for almost all occasions, only thing that you should select the right card, appropriate color, design or picture along with the printed message or your own handwritten massage, which will reveal your affection. As Greeting cards are for many reasons, occasions and hence there are many types of Greeting Cards available in the market: 

  1. Birthday card
  2. New year card
  3. Anniversary card
  4. Thank you card
  5. Thinking of you card
  6. Sorry card
  7. Best wishes card
  8. Good Luck card
  9. Get well card
  10. Flower card
  11. Congratulations card
  12. Engagement card
  13. New baby card
  14. I Love you card
  15. Valentines day card
  16. Christmas card
  17. Dipavali card
  18. Diwali card
  19. Navratri card
  20. Ugadi card (Hindu New Year card)
  21. Gudhipadawa card (Hindu New Year card)
  22. Sankranti card
  23. Mothers day card
  24. Fathers day card
  25. Congratulation card and so on.  

Hallmark Cards and American Greetings are the largest producers of greeting cards in the world. In the United Kingdom, it is estimated that one billion pounds are spent on greeting cards every year, with the average person sending 55 cards per year. In the USA 7.5 billion cards are sent annually.

In the United States, many adults traditionally mail Christmas cards to their friends and relatives in December. Many service businesses also send cards to their customers in this season, usually with a universally acceptable non-religious message such as “happy holidays” or “seasons’s greetings.

The Historians say the custom of sending greeting cards is started by to the ancient Chinese who exchanged messages of good will to celebrate the New Year. Egyptians in ancient times conveyed their greetings on papyrus scrolls. By the early 1400s, handmade paper greeting cards were being exchanged in Europe. The Germans are known to have printed New Year’s greetings from woodcuts as early as 1400, and handmade paper Valentines were being exchanged in various parts of Europe in the early to mid-1400s.

By the 1850s, the greeting card had been transformed from a relatively expensive, handmade and hand-delivered gift to a popular and affordable means of personal communication. Thanks to new advances in printing and mechanization. This was followed by new trends like Christmas cards, the first of which appeared in published form in London in 1843 when Sir Henry Cole hired artist John Calcott Horsley to design a holiday card that he could send to his friends and acquaintances. In the 1860s, companies like Marcus Ward & Co, Goodall and Charles Bennett began the mass production of greeting cards. They employed well-known artists such as Kate Greenaway and Walter Crane as illustrators and card designers.

There are two major categories of greeting cards, one is mass produced ( printed on offset printing machines etc.) and other is handmade greeting cards. Hand painted greeting cards is also a separate category of greeting cards. These cards are also available but this type of cards can not be mass- produced as each card has to be individually painted. So every hand painted card is unique.

While this uniquesness is great it’s not always practical.

So how can you get a personalized greeting card in your own handwriting with photos without leaving your home or office. There’s just one company with a track record that can produce physical, printable greeting cards on demand with quality. Check them out here.

Free Greeting Cards – Are They Worth It?

There’s a saying that’s pretty true in life – “You get what you pay for” and it certainly applies with free greeting cards, especially free printable greeting cards.

Free greeting cards are:

  • Convenient
  • Cheap – free
  • Easy to send

BUT

  • There’s limited choice per site
  • Designs are limited and generally old in appearance
  • Poor paper quality
  • Not customized
  • Messages are basic and not personalised
  • Photos can’t always be uploaded
  • Free printable cards use a lot of your printer’s ink; thereby making it costly
  • Postage has to be done manually costing you time

Free greeting cards also say to your recipient “you’re not worth paying a card for” or “I don’t value our relationship”. You would never use a free greeting card or a free printable greeting card if you are trying to build a business relationship. It would be quickest way to kill any future business dealings.

So, can you get a high quality, physical printable greeting card that you can personalize the message even in your own handwriting, upload a photo and click send on your computer? And could this card be printed on high quality gsm card paper, have a stamp placed on it and posted for you?

The answer is YES!

Is it expensive? NO!

Visit www.thecardsuperstore.com  and grab a FREE sample of this award winning product

A Brief History Of Greeting Cards

It is believed the early Chinese were the first to send what could be called a greeting card – for the New Year they sent tidings of good will. Evidence also shows that ancient Egyptians wrote greetings on papyrus scrolls.

The next stop on the timeline is around 1400 when the Germans used woodcuts to print New Year’s wishes. In the early or mid 1400s Europeans exchanged handmade paper greetings for Valentine’s Day. The British Museum has a Valentine from the 1400s that is the oldest known greeting card in existence.

The introduction of the postage stamp in 1840 helped the popularity of the greeting card. What was once relatively expensive, hand made, and personally-delivered gift became an effective and affordable means of personal communication. Another factor promoting advancement was the improvement of printing methods. Mass production didn’t mean the end of the elaborate greeting card, however. The Victorian era saw some very ornate and intricate designs.

John Calcott Horsley was commissioned in 1843 to design the first published Christmas card. A young lady from Massachusetts, Esther Howland, was the first regular publisher of valentines in the United States. She started in 1849 with handmade valentines, often using real lace and ribbon, and went on to found a successful publishing company with elaborately decorated cards as a specialty.

The person generally credited with the beginning of America’s greeting card industry is Louis Prang, a German immigrant. He started a lithography business near Boston in 1856 and soon his works were known as the best around.

After a slump in the late nineteenth century, the greeting card industry saw more and more new publishers. Competition created advances in printing, decorative treatments, and artistic techniques. The widespread use of color lithography in the 1930s fueled a continued expansion in the industry.

Humor in American greeting cards became more prominent in the 1950s with the introduction of the studio card – a long card with a short punch line. Cards for a wide range of events and holidays as well as “non-occasion” cards showed up in the 1980s.