Cards have remained a means of communicating love and genuine concerns over the years. In spite of the digital era, Card making has continued to find relevance in the world through the numerous card-making free classes both onsite and online.
In America alone, 6.5 billion greeting cards are sent each year, but how often do you find a card you really like? Do you find their messages too muddy? Why not make someone’s day by gifting them a personalized card handmade by you?
About Card Making
Cardmaking is the craft of handmade greeting cards. Many people with an interest in related crafts like scrapbooking and stamping have started using their skills to start making handmade cards.
This has helped card-making become a popular hobby. Traditional retail stores have begun devoting an increasing proportion of their retail space to handcrafted cards.
Handcrafted products are now seen by retailers as a way to increase margins, and handcrafted cards are no exception. This is particularly so since mass-produced printed greeting cards have faced competition from electronic greeting cards.
Greeting cards are a billion-dollar business.
In contrast, hundreds of small businesses have been started by enthusiastic artisans eager to cash in on their card-making endeavors.
Many of them take advantage of the low setup costs of web-based selling and the broad customer base of auction sites like eBay.
Many others continue to sell their creations at craft fairs, markets, and festivals. Others use their card-making skills to make a profit in the wedding planning market by making handmade wedding invitations and favors.
See also Top 15 Photography Schools Online You Can Start Attending
Best Card Making Free Classes in 2022
Here are the best Card Making Free Classes available for you;
Altenew
Altenew offers a fantastic range of online card-making courses – at a reasonable price. Costs are typical $8.95 (£6.92) per course with discounts on packages. They cover every aspect of card making and are presented by experienced instructors.
New courses are added every month so you can update your skills on the latest trends and techniques. The courses use Altenew products, but it’s easy to apply the information to your own products.
You pay for each class individually (except for packages) and the course is added to your online profile.
Online Card Classes
Jennifer MacGuire and Kristina Warner are the inspiration behind Online Card Classes. It offers 46 courses covering most aspects of card making, including clean and simple cards, Christmas cards, and card-making techniques.
The lessons vary in length, which is reflected in the price. They are presented in online videos with detailed accompanying instructions for printing.
Jennifer and Kristina present most of the videos featuring guest appearances from other popular map markers.
There are also courses taught by Tim Holtz, Dawn Woleslagle, Sandy Allnock, and Kathy Racoosin.
For some of the older grades, the stamps used are no longer available, but the information is still valid today and relevant to map makers. Just apply the techniques to the stamps you own.
You pay for each class separately and the courses stay on your online profile.
Kit and Clowder
Kit and Clowder offer online painting courses for both pencil and alcohol markers with a digital stamp for each project. There is a monthly subscription to online courses and they offer some courses for free.
You will receive a detailed step-by-step booklet listing the color alternatives for different brands of crayons and markers. The videos give clean and detailed instructions.
If you’re interested in coloring, try the free courses to see if their format works for you.
See also Best 15 Creative Writing Scholarships | APPLY NOW
Craftsy
Craftsy is back after a brief incarnation as Craftsy. It covers a wide range of crafts from quilting to cake decorating.
Card making can be found in the papercraft section, although some card makers may also be interested in the painting and drawing sections.
The video courses are presented by experienced instructors such as Shari Carroll and Catherine Pooler.
Craftsy has a membership option that gives you access to the full-class library. Great if you are interested in a range of crafts.
Alternatively, each class can be purchased separately and saved to your account.
Craft Courses
Craft Courses is a resource providing details of workshops, classes, and courses on a variety of creative arts and crafts in the UK.
There is a comprehensive search facility to help you narrow your search, including courses that take place at home or online.
Card making can be found in a subsection of paper crafts.
Meet Up
Meet-up is a platform to find groups of people who want to pursue an interest together. It contains details of courses and workshops around the world.
To find a local group you may need to do a number of different topic searches, such as Card Making, and Stamping Up! paper crafts and rubber stamps.
With the global pandemic, there is an increase in online/Zoom events with kits by mail. Some groups may be listed in more than one section.
Skillshare
Skillshare is an online community with creative and media courses. There are courses for beginners in card making, from tools and supplies to hot stamping.
A few courses are offered for free, including;
Easy Photo Editing for Social Media – share your photos with your friends or on Pinterest/Instagram
Scrapbook.com
Scrapbook.com is an online craft store based in the United States. The courses cover a range of crafting techniques, including card making. All courses are currently free and feature well-known creatives such as Tim Holtz and Wendy Vecchi.
Mixbook
Mixbook is an online card-making tool that makes it easy for users to display their memories on themed templates and turn their pages into beautiful books without fumbling with scissors and tape.
It offers a wealth of themed templates that make putting together a card to commemorate a special occasion like a birthday or holiday as easy as drag-and-drop.
Mixbook allows users to pull images from social media, phones, computers, and cloud storage to create digital scrapbooks. It also offers a mobile editor that allows users to create maps from their smartphones.
The flexible layouts, 200+ fonts, and collection of branded stickers allow for true customization. Users can also choose to create a book from scratch instead of using one of the pre-made templates.
Printed books start at $15.99 for a semi-gloss softcover in 8×6 and go up from there. Mixbook offers a selection of different paper finishing types, such as Pearlescent and semi-gloss, premium matte, and premium gloss in lay-flat book style.
Artifact Uprising
If you’re looking for an innovative way to showcase images and capture moments, Artifact Uprising’s selection of custom-printed photo books, cards, and other specialty prints is what you need.
The brand is best known for its quality softcover photo books (starting at $15), hardcover photo books (starting at $69), and lay-flat photo albums (starting at $149).
The brand’s user-friendly website makes it easy to create beautifully designed photo books and albums.
Its specialized editing software not only guides users through the process of uploading photos and organizing the books but also gives them the greatest possible creative control over aspects such as layout and text.
The brand’s style is minimal, allowing the photos to show through.
Artifact Uprising offers its hardcover books in a variety of colors with the option of a full photo or half photo dust jacket.
The books are made from 100 percent recycled material; 100lb Mohawk option paper gives a premium feel. Softcover books come with 100% recycled Mohawk Options paper in a matte finish.
Also, check out: €9000 Picture Book Contest 2022 | Apply
Canva
Online card maker Canva is the go-to place for creating beautiful, custom pages that can be downloaded or printed.
Canva offers a range of card templates that users can add and resize personal images too. In addition to the templates, images, illustrations, and icons can be animated to create living digital memories.
Once an image is uploaded to Canva, it is saved to a user’s account for use over and over again. Likewise, finished pages are stored in the cloud, making them accessible anywhere for later use.
Many of Canva’s features are free, but the site offers accounts with more cloud storage and helpful upgrades like Magic Resize and the ability to share social media content for $9.99 a month or $119.99 a year or $30 per month per person for teams to share.
Smilebox
Smilebox is an easy and fast way to create online slideshows to share with family and friends using the brand’s 1,000+ templates.
Smilebox bills itself as a free service, but that’s not the whole truth: Smilebox’s basic plan only comes with some of the brand’s templates and doesn’t allow users to add many custom features like music.
Free slideshows can only be shared in limited ways, such as: via social media and email.
The stalwart card maker — the person who creates a new collection of photos to celebrate every small occasion — racks up handsome miles from the brand’s Club and Pro accounts, billed monthly or annually.
For $3.99 per month or $47.88 per year, Club Smilebox gives users access to all of Smilebox’s customization features.
The exception to this list is the ability to add personal logos or links, which is only available with a Smilebox Pro subscription ($7.99 per month or $95.88 per year).
Designhill
Designhill’s Card Maker is an easy-to-use tool that allows you to create professional-looking cards online for free. It helps you capture unforgettable moments forever. You can quickly turn your pictures or photos into a treasure trove of memories.
There are thousands of built-in templates to choose from, created by designers around the world. There is a wide range of colors, text, fonts, and layouts available to use in your designs.
You can customize your map in just a minute even if you don’t know how to create it.
In a few simple steps, you can create your own map. Choose a ready-made template from the Designhill library according to your style and needs. Upload an image from ready-made photos or select one from your desktop.
Replace or update the existing details, change color, font, style, etc. Now your final design can be downloaded in PNG, JPEG, or PDF format with a single click.
DigiScrap
DigiScrap is card maker software for creating attractive cards. You can find many images and texts and rotate, scale, crop and move the image.
Background textures such as gradients, ribbons, and checks are available. Some stock items can also be found, like buttons, photo corners, umbrellas, coffee, grommets, and coasters to make your card more interesting.
Treasure Book
It is one of the best software programs to create beautiful and memorable cards. The pages of the scrapbook look like book pages. On these pages, you can add a background, images, text, etc.
Add an image to the page by selecting it on your desktop. Set the direction, size, position, and angle of the page. You can add more pages if needed and import and export the final design in .dlp format.
Ript
You just have to drag and drop the image you want to use in your map with the help of this simple and free map maker.
You can also add images from any web browser such as Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge, as well as from your hard drive.
You can view your map or a specific image using the zoom feature. Ript and JPG formats are available for saving maps and Ript format imports the files.
FAQs
While many crafters sell their designs to the general public, focusing on professionals in need of attractive and unique greeting cards can be a highly profitable strategy.
Greeting cards are big business. People need them on countless occasions. Not only do they send them to mark births, deaths, graduations, and anniversaries, but they also send them just to add cheer to a loved one’s day.
cardstock
The handcrafted card is more meaningful to the recipient and just as attractive as any store-bought card. They are unique, one of a kind, not mass produced, cold and impersonal.
Conclusion
LOVE making handmade cards but struggle to come up with new ideas? Or maybe you have some new crafting materials in your stash but don’t know how to use them?
If you are overwhelmed with your card-making projects and need a helping hand to guide you along the way, this list of online card-making classes is what you need.
References
- https://craftworld.com/cms/free-online-cardmaking-course/
- https://www.skillshare.com/browse/card-making
- https://altenew.com/collections/free-online-classes
- https://www.onlinecardclasses.com/