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OK - This is not STRICTLY a photography question, however it is related to the act of selling photography - feel free to move / close (there is not arts & crafts stack as yet)

I am looking into ways of selling my photography other than stock sites, and thought I would experiment with making some greetings cards with local views and placing them in local shops.

I want to print them myself (at least initially as an experiment)

So where can i get VERY high quality blanks in the UK at a decent price?

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  • So whats with the -1? seems like a perfectly reasonable question to me..... – Digital Lightcraft Oct 22 '13 at 19:13
  • I didn't vote it down, but my guess would be that it got a downvote for being too localized. If someone asked the same question but substituted "UK" for "California", it would seem too localized to me. For example, the UK only has .9% of the worlds population. – dpollitt Oct 24 '13 at 13:14
  • @dpollitt - Hmm odd... well California isn't a land-locked country... but anyway, lets see. – Digital Lightcraft Oct 24 '13 at 14:18
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    I also didn't vote down, but I suspect that it's because it's a "where can I buy" question, rather than a how to or what is question. Probably asking for information on finding high quality cardstock would do better, and then once you know what you want, finding a vendor is easy (and as dpollit notes, also very limited in space and time). – Please Read Profile Oct 24 '13 at 15:30
  • To sum it up, ask "Which print paper is suitable for printing high quality greeting cards?" – Esa Paulasto Oct 25 '13 at 16:48
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I don't know how the availability is in the UK, but Strathmore has a variety of blank cards which might be suitable. They have at least one variety for inkjet printing, a few "photo" cards that you can use to mount or insert traditional prints, and their watercolor cards are made with the same paper I use for my alternative processes work (the cards seem more heavily sized than the sheet paper).

As of when I'm writing this they have at least one online distributor/retailer with a .uk domain - looks like £0.50 to £0.60 per card in quantity. How "decent" that is depends on your target retail price…

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A greetings card = two-fold card, crease in the middle. Like this?

greeting card - two fold

Okay, first it was a postcard what I thought you had in mind, but I see now a "greetings card" is not a postcard. I would ask a book printing house, or suchalike. They have the machinery to make the crease, such a simple job really, and if you order a big enough quantity it might even be affordable. Some small business place would most likely be flexible enough to have room in their daily schedule to make these for you.

For convenience it'd be good to look for such a shop near you, allowing you to see yourself the variety of paper qualities they have in stock. Phone catalog Yellow pages should offer the best source for what print houses there are near you. In case they don't have photo-printing quality paper, you might be allowed to bring your own papers which they then cut and fold the way you want it.

Of course, you might consider letting them do the printing too. Ask for samples of their print quality and color accuracy. Costly, perhaps, but worth to ask anyway.

A mother of my childhood friend worked in this kind of smallish book printing house, and they did this kind of jobs in between those books.

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  • Yes that is what I am looking for, but the point is that blanks ARE available, ready-creased, I am looking for a supplier. – Digital Lightcraft Oct 28 '13 at 9:41
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PaperSpectrum were selling fine art / archival grade greetings card blanks with envelopes. They don't seem to be on the website now (although they do have other blank inkjet greetings cards available) but did recently so they may have some stock to shift (cheaply!?)

A cached version of the page from the beginning of December 2013 is available here

I've no relationship with paperspectrum, they just came up as a UK supplier. In fact I don't even print anything myself except for knocking out the odd 6x4 on a little dye-sub canon selphy

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I use Fotospeed who supply a range of prescored cards in both gloss and matt paper finishes and in different sizes. They, together with Permajet mentioned earlier are probably the two main suppliers of photographic paper for amateur photographers in the UK.

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I noticed the other day that Permajet now make pre-scored paper to print your own cards in A5 and A6 (finished - i folded) sizes.

See here.

(No link to Permajet, but I have successfully used other inkjet paper from them previously and been very happy with the printed result).

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My solution is somewhat different, but much less expensive. I buy letter-sized (8.5 x 11 inch) cardstock, cut it in half on a paper cutter to get two pieces of cardstock which are 8.5 x 5.5 inches. I fold those in half to get a card which is 4.25 x 5.5 inches. Now, if you get your prints made in what is sometimes called "digital print ratio" (4 x 5.3 inches) that is a perfect size to paste/glue onto the card. Then just buy appropriate size envelopes for the cards and you're done.

In the United States, you can get the digital print size prints from Walgreens. I'm not sure how available they'd be in the UK. I also realize that A4 isn't quite the same as 8.5 by 11, but I suspect you could find a a similar sort of solution with print and paper size that would work.

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