Make Your Own Invitations as Photo Cards

Photo cards are best when used with invitations for weddings, thank you cards, or birth announcements. Show a picture of the lucky couple inside of a wedding invitation, or pictures from the ceremony inside of the wedding thank-you cards. Photos of a new baby on a birth announcement. Why not show a picture of the Mom-to-be's baby belly on a shower invitation. So many possibilities!

Here are some creative ideas and techniques I like to use when making photo cards:

*Photo postcards - Put your photo on the front of the card with text just underneath. You can have these color copied and cut at your local copy shop. After copying and cutting they are ready to send. Just slap on a stamp and an address label!

*Use photo corners! - When using photo corners you can attach the photo to the inside of the card or invitation. It will not be glued down so it now becomes a small gift for the recipient! Whenever I need to get photos printed out to make these sort of cards I use Snapfish.com by HP. The photos come in the mail very quickly and you can even get them same day by having them sent to the printers at any local kiosk or photo development center. I love using them!

*Frame your photos - Using decorative or construction paper create a frame around the photo and place it anywhere on or inside your invitations! Use glitter or paint pens to draw a frame!

*Make your photo peek through! - Create your cards or invitations in layers. Maybe use a paper punch to have just a face peek through to the front! Layer with vellum on a wedding invite!

Getting the pictures onto the photo cards...

To make cards or invitations with photos you need to have the actual photographs to attach to the photo cards.

Of course you could use actual photo prints developed in small sizes like wallet or even smaller. Although this could cost a lot of money, the recipient of these cards will definitely appreciate it. Especially if you use photo corners to attach them to the card.

I would recommend using your digital camera and some photo manipulation software instead. Simply upload the photo you would like to use into the program, crop and resize it. You can then open a new page in the same software (size the document at 8 1/2 by 11" - same as your regular printer paper). Copy and paste the picture onto the new page as many times as you can fit it. Then print this document onto regular printer paper. Make sure and choose the best quality printer settings. You can even buy photo paper at an office supply store and print onto this for better quality. Cut out the pictures and attach them to the photo cards.

Even if you do not own a digital camera, these days a lot of photo development centers are offering to put your pictures onto a disk for you. Do this to get the pictures onto your computer.

If you do not already have a good photo manipulation software then try using Paint.net . You can download it here for free!

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