Morning Star Loc: West coast, North of the 49th N.

Haven't checked lately, but our local Staples and Walmart used to carry them.

roder10 Loc: Colorado Springs

I agree, Photographers Edge has a great selection of cards for your own photos. They also have calendars, etc. Check them out!

milong

I order from Vista Print. You upload your photo and create the card you want. Not award winning photo quality but still pretty good. I found this less expensive than my own ink, paper, etc.

Kingman

I also recently started doing photo cards. Red River has the most variety of card stock surfaces and card sizes without envelopes and is reasonable. Red River also sells clear "glassine"envelopes for individual cards as well as clear boxes to hold 8-10 cards. Epson has less of a variety of card stock and is slightly more expensive than RR. Avery has the nice selection with software, but the "stock" is has limited surfaces and usually includes envelopes so the likelihood of mis-match of card to envelopes is higher. You will always run test prints (cards) which results in a mis-matched card to envelope ratio. Cropping your photos to the specific card stock size is my most challenging step. I started a small business selling photo cards and it's challenging, but it's fun to send out cards to friends and relatives. I got into the business when I saw someone trying to get out of it by selling 1000 cards, envelopes, and glassines for pennies on the dollar on eBay. The usual cost per 5x7 card is just under $1.00 (finished card and ink). I print cards on a regular Epson all in one printer and get fantastic results. Good Luck!

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I have been making my own cards for many years. As ngrea, I am currently using standard cover stock, printing two per sheet, and cutting them with a paper cutter and folding them by hand. I started out using card stock (120 lb paper) but my current printer won't handle it. Cover stock (67 lb paper) is heavy enough for cards and they're not too difficult to get a good tight fold.

I buy envelopes in boxes of 100 at Staples. They cost about $0.14 per envelope that way. You might be able to get them cheaper with a larger order.

A duplex printer is helpful so you can print on both sides of the paper. Otherwise you can just turn the paper over to print the other side. You might also want to make yourself a cartouche that you can print on the back side of the card to identify your business and possibly put some ID to describe the photo on the front.

The Photo Guy

I buy mine from Double U Paper. Here’s the link. I typically use the brialliant white. Photos are easy to mount with the embossed border frame perfect for a 4x6 print.

https://www.doubleupaper.com/detail.asp?mod=PHSE

Guy

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

It depends on whether you want stock material in which you insert photos, or if you want to actually print on the card stock. for printing, I use Red River products. For inserting photos, I use Leading Edge. Both are nice products. I've used Avery products, but I find the colours fade quite rapidly, so I cannot recommend them.

jpopkin

I agree with Photographersedge.com. Nice quality and some unique picture mounts.

kenpic Loc: Edmonds, WA

I use Strathmore Photo Mount Cards. You can get them in 10, 50 or 100 per box--includes envelopes. Then I have 4x6's printed at Costco (.17 each). They look very professional and work great.

https://www.cheapjoes.com/strathmore-photo-mount-cards-with-decorative-emboss-100-pack.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwgOzdBRDlARIsAJ6_HNn8njCMMcJnY-qO7J2Xs67agny_9KbkXi0YXU7KBEToqCq2sFoG7h8aAqWrEALw_wcB

Ken

Photographer Jim Loc: Rio Vista, CA

From your comment saying that you want to sell these cards after you produce them, I'm assuming you are referring to greeting cards. if so, take a look at the card options at Clearbags.com.

Clearbags has a number of card stock options, sizes, envelopes, boxes with clear plastic tops, etc. Their prices are quite reasonable and they are generally pretty quick in delivery. They also have the clear plastic sleeves for individual cards.

When printing your own cards, you will more than likely need to develop a template for the card size you decide on, so plan on a small bit of time spent in Photoshop to get that set up. Once you have a template, you can use it for different photos you wish to print; you can simply size your photo and drop into the template. Each time you develop a card, do a "save as" and you will have a file for additional reprints in the future.

Clearbags also sell a "framed" card options which allows you to insert a 4" x 6" print or a 5" x 7" print that shows through a cutout window in the card. Some people find this option more convenient as it eliminates the need to create your own template. (The cards run $8.75 for 25, envelopes separate). You can usually keep your production costs between $1 and $1.25 per card (card stock, envelope, clear sleeves, or card boxes, paper and ink). (You can also use places like Costco to print 4x6 or 5x7 prints inexpensively. then just assemble) Selling at $3-5 each will give you a decent profit margin.

Hope this was helpful.

https://www.clearbags.com/stationery-market

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Avery makes two types of 10-up, micro-perforated business card stocks. They are both perforated sheets of 8.5x11 inch card stock, but one is micro-perforated in a way that tearing it apart forms a much smoother edge than the cheaper version.

I'm not sure what business cards have to do with Photo NOTE 'Crads', but there's your explanation...

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

I use Strathmore Photo Mount Cards. They are heavy textured paper with an embossed frame on the front page sized to accept a 4 by 6 inch print. The envelopes are the same quality and texture paper. The paper is ace-free. I have used them for years and they present a really quality result. I tried other but they looked flimsy by comparison. The Strathmore product number for the white cards is 105-230. I buy mine from Dick Block on the Internet.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Just as an off-topic food-for-thought aside to all this discussion:

The market for greeting cards of all types, especially holiday greeting cards, isn't even close to what it once was. The Internet, home printers, smartphones, and digital cameras have supplanted the need for family traditions of going to a professional photographer for a family or kid portrait, then ordering a package of photo greeting cards. School portrait and big box in-store studios have seen sales erode severely, too.

When I was at Herff Jones Photography Division (sold to Lifetouch in 2011), I worked on a project to make over 125,000 orders of an average 50 holiday cards each Fall. It started when The Picture People (then a rapidly growing mall store chain of cookie-cutter portrait studios) needed a lab to produce their holiday cards. Kodak recommended us to them, and we produced a sample of 11,000+ orders in the Fall of 1999. Our site manager drafted me to help. I was running digital production departments at the time, as we built our digital lab and transitioned away from film. I was also deeply into FileMaker Pro database solution building.

So... I built a database that evolved from a turnkey receiving, tracking, shipping, billing, and reporting system running in four labs, with full film/optical production, into a full-blown automated digital production tool. For the last two years we used it, we had all production in one lab, and printed from both scanned film and digital camera images. We were using The Picture People's order data to marry a customer-chosen design with a photo and personalized greeting message, using Kodak's DP2 lab software. It would automatically send orders of 25, 50, 75, or 100 cards to three Noritsu digital mini-labs that ran 20 hours a day, six days a week. It was really quite a slick process.

From 1999 to 2005, Greeting cards were probably THE most profitable item our division ever sold. Of course, The Picture People eventually figured out they could make their own digitally, far less expensively than we were charging them, and we lost the contract in 2005. The catch was that they had to convert over 300 stores from film/optical cameras, processors, and package printing means to full digital capture and printing means. By the mid-2000s, They were also fighting the same battle we were with declining sales due to Internet, social media sharing sites, smartphones, and digital cameras.

Young parents no longer want a big bill for a portrait session, plus prints, cards, envelopes, and postage, when they can send out an email with a password-protected link to online images. In fact, nearly all their images are online. Even my 80-year-old mother-in-law wants digital files for her iPad and iPhone... only a few exceptional prints make it to her walls. The Picture People closed lots and lots of stores over the last decade or so. The company was sold, and the new owners are trying to bring it back.

delkeener Loc: SW Rhode Island, USA

Translation---Clead ? = Guesses: Clean or Clear

police340 Loc: Newport, RI

Thanks all. I found what I was looking for. Appreciate all the advice.