Card stock for cardmaking and other craft uses comes in a wide variety of textures and colors. Card stock (also called cover stock or pasteboard) is a paper stock that is thicker and more durable than normal writing or printing paper but thinner and more flexible A craft is a Skill, especially involving practical arts. It may refer to a Trade or particular art

Cardmaking is the craft of handmaking greeting cards. A craft is a Skill, especially involving practical arts. It may refer to a Trade or particular art A greeting card is an illustrated folded card featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment Many people with interests in allied crafts such as scrapbooking and stamping have begun to use their skills to start making handmade cards. Scrapbooking is a method for preserving personal and family history in the form of photographs printed media and memorabilia contained in decorated albums or scrapbooks Securities Trading Access Messaging Protocol (STAMP is a message format protocol used in Canadian Stock market describing electronic communications between exchange This has contributed to cardmaking becoming a popular hobby.

Publishers have also been quick to cash in on the popularity of card making, with several monthly magazines in the US and UK devoted to the topic. There have also been over 150 books on handmade cards published (source: Amazon. com).

Traditional high street stores have begun to devote an increasing amount of their floorspace to handmade cards. Handmade products are now being seen by retailers as a way to increase margins, and handmade cards are no exception. This is particularly the case as mass produced printed greeting cards have been faced with competition from electronic greeting cards. An e-card is similar to a Postcard or Greeting card, with the primary difference being that it is created using Digital media instead of paper or other Over seven billion greeting cards were sent in the US alone last year; greeting cards are a multi-billion dollar business.

In contrast, hundreds of small businesses have been setup by avid crafters keen to make a return on their cardmaking efforts. Many of these are taking advantages of the low setup costs of web-based selling and the wide customer-base of auction sites like eBay. eBay Inc is an American Internet company that manages eBaycom an Online auction and shopping Website in which people and businesses buy and Many others continue to sell their creations at craft fairs, markets and fêtes. Others use their cardmaking skills to turn a profit in the wedding planning market making handmade wedding invitations and favors. RedBumbleBeeInvitationsJPG|thumb|right|250px| Modern Wedding Invitation]] A wedding invitation is a letter asking the recipient to attend a Wedding.

History

The custom of sending greeting cards can be traced back to the ancient Chinese, who exchanged messages of good will to celebrate the New Year, and to the early Egyptians, who conveyed their greetings on papyrus scrolls. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Ancient Egypt was an Ancient Civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now Papyrus (/pəˈpaɪrəs/ (Rhymes -aɪrəs)is a thick paper-like material produced from the Pith of the papyrus plant Cyperus papyrus

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.

However, 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, due largely to advances in printing and mechanization.

This trend continued, 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. A Christmas card is a Greeting card sent as part of the traditional celebration of Christmas in order to convey between people a range of sentiments related to Sir Henry Cole ( 15 July 1808, Bath, England – 18 April 1882, London, England) was a Civil John Callcott Horsley ( January 29, 1817 - October 18, 1903) English painter, son of William Horsley, the musician Technical developments like color lithography in 1930 propelled the manufactured greeting card industry forward. Lithography is a method for Printing using a plate or stone with a completely smooth surface

During the 1980s the trend began to turn, with consumers increasing looking for greeting cards that were differentiated from the standard offering. In the late 1990s the market was clearly beginning to separate in to three different segments:

• handmade and premium cards
• mass-manufactured cards
• e-cards

See also

• Arts and crafts
• Greeting cards

External links

• Wedding Invitation Cards
• Card Making Methods
• Cardmaking supplys