Collection: Cards & Envelopes

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. By the early 15th century, handmade paper greeting cards were being exchanged in Europe.

A handmade card is a card which includes a production stage or a feature that is made by hand. The term covers a wide range of products including not only for example, applique, embellishments, ribbon, lace but also pop-up and 3-D cards as well as cards made with mixed materials.

The term "Handmade" is applied both to cards made by amateurs and to volume-production cards that include stages made by hand.

In the UK, it is estimated that one billion pounds are spent on greeting cards every year, with the average person sending 55 cards per year. In the United States, approximately 6.5 billion greeting cards are bought each year, at a total cost of more than US $7 billion.

Postcards which are single-sided without the fold, can function in a manner somewhat similar to greeting cards. Postcards appeared fairly early on in the history of the postal service as a cheaper way of sending messages, especially those of a tourist nature.