The greeting card industry may never die--giving E-cards is just not the same as receiving on that you can put on your desk and hold in your hand. But for those of you like me who have been dissatisfied with the choices found at stores, either because of price or unoriginality or bad aesthetics, here are some ideas to get you started at making your own cards.

The actual price of these cards is probably around 50-75 cents. The cost in labor is worth it because it's fun. :)

I still have many hand-made cards from my friends. They say more about them as people, they mean more to me. Don't skip the card-giving, invest in card-making!

This is a photo of the card I gave to my parents for their 29th anniversary. It was really easy.

First, I bought a box of cardstock at Michaels that came with their own envelopes--50 in all--for 10 bucks. This will probably last me for years.

The best advice I've been given for card-making is to keep it simple. It's easy to add, add, add stuff to a card but it's better to work with simple concepts. One cute idea per card. The special idea with this card was putting a picture of my parents at their wedding right on it.

My parents got married before digital pictures, so I was only able to reprint one because we have a scanner in my house. If you don't have a scanner, you can go to Kinko's and get a high-quality scan of any picture. You can get color or black and white. It shouldn't be too expensive.

As for the text, my penmanship is horrendous. I practiced on another sheet before writing directly on the card, which I admit was risky. Plan out what you're going to write and how to space it so it's centered on the card. I don't like sappy sentiments, so I simply wrote "Happy Anniversary" and the date of their wedding, with a personal note on the back.

The colors were chosen based on the colors of the wedding. I noticed in their album that the bridesmaids wore a light aqua blue, so I chose that for the card. It adds to the memories.

I mounted the photo on a brown square. The white is actually the same paper as the photo--I cut it out leaving a white buffer to frame the photo nicely. On the back, I actually attached a pocket made of a paper square and put a gift card in it.  I realized quickly that not all cards need to have a center fold.

Elmer's glue or Rubber Cement will hold it all down. Sharpie "ultra fine point" markers are a good investment for writing cards.

VOILA! Easy. My parents want to make a similar one for my grandparents' anniversary coming up. That's the highest form of flattery to me!

This was the handiwork of me and two friends. We planned a two-part party for our soon-to-be-wed friend and thought the invitation should reflect that. This is another invite that doesn't fold--it just has a front and back. We made it oblong so it could fit into letter-sized envelopes and so it would look good on a refrigerator.

The fire and teapot were drawn/cut by hand--it pays to have artistic abilities. I was on teapot duty. It was difficult at first, but I soon learned to trace my best teapot to reproduce it. I also used an Exacto knife on top of a piece of cardboard. No scissor cramps for me! Exacto knives run around 7 dollars in most stores--a good investment.

So one friend assembled the pink/brown background, cutting paper with a photo cutter to ensure straight edges. The other one cut out the wood and fire (move the paper when cutting, not the scissors). I did the teapots and wrote the messages. Again, my handwriting is not the best, but the dots on the edges of the letters dressed it up a lot. We found that using the Ultra Fine Point Sharpies for the letters and regular fine point sharpies for the dots was a lot faster.

We printed out the details and glued them on the back. This covered up any bleeding from the sharpies and was clear and organized-looking.

We got a lot of compliments on our invites--creative memory quality without the store-bought cutouts and stickers.

This is the most important part of card-making--collecting your resources. Stores will sell card-making kits with everything you need, but in reality, everything you need is already there. Save old envelops, blank cards, calendars, magazines, any kind of material with a cool pattern or a lot of potential. I keep them all in a basket.

I was given blank "K" cards (my name is Kim!) that I haven't found a use for on their own, so I often use them as thank you cards, decorating them with paper cut-outs. They come with their own envelop so it's really handy.

Almost anything can be repurposed. It's a fancier word for recycle--so it's not only cheap, but green!