Monday, October 26, 2009

DIY Business Cards

I design my own business cards.  Always have.  The reason why is because as an artist, I think it's cheap to have someone else's artwork on the card that is representing you and your art.  Therefore, I have always designed and ordered my own business cards online.

But there are some problems with this.

#1 - It's expensive.  I print both the front and the back of my cards because I have two shops - Echoes of Stars' Designs and Simple Stuff Skin Care.  Although this saves paper, it jacks up the printing cost of the cards.  Not to mention that I always do a custom design of my own artwork as the background, which also increases the cost.  I tried printing them at home on my printer, but that also is not cost effective since printer ink is so expensive!

#2 - I always felt bad about my cards' impact on the environment.  Ordering business cards online does not leave you many options for recycled material.  Printing your own is better because you can purposefully choose recycled paper, but there's still the environmental impact of the ink and printer cartridges to consider.

What to do, what to do?  Well, I stumbled upon www.iprint.com where you can custom design a business card-sized STAMP.  Yes, folks, a STAMP!  Then you can stamp your own cards and only have to pay for stamp pad ink (which is way cheaper than printer ink)!

Now here's the really cool part - I use scraps of cardboard I find lying around the house for my cards.  Not only is it recycled, it's also being reused!  And the next time I go to the scrapbooking store, I'm going to buy some environmentally-friendly ink.  How cool is that?

Just thought I'd share. :)

1 comment:

The Creative Mixx said...

Great post and so fitting for me, so I just had to become a follower:)

I've been needing to get business cards made for my blog, but didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for it....

But this sounds like a fab idea!!! And, the fact that I can used recycled materials is a definite bonus!

Thx!