The Birthday Cards Project

If I know your birthday, and I have your address, there is a fair chance that you will find yourself on the receiving end of some birthday card I've lovingly (or giddily) photoshopped and MS Worded into being. In the quiet of the year's end and before work had started up in earnest, that's the project I set my sights on: trying to work up birthday cards for 2025 for the folks on my long-maintained list.

Now, as is my particular bent, here comes the backstory. On some visit to an office supply store like Staples or Office Depot on a long-ago work trip, I chanced to grab a box of Avery notecards suitable for inkjet printers. I thought it'd be a nice way to easily produce some basic Roediger House notecards, using the original pen-and-ink graphic that came to me at the time of the house purchase. I also experimented with using instead some photo I'd snapped as part of daily life, like that shot of Sumner by the fireside, comfy in my old man's chair.

Over time, I began playing a bit with the lay-out and design, every once in a while crafting a special card from an idea that popped into my head. Then I started making an occasional birthday or thank-you card, especially once it seems that manufactured greeting cards had gotten much more expensive than I liked. I toyed with a different format and printable cards, for post cards, as well.

Maybe there are many who still embrace the tradition of holiday cards each December, with their curated address lists hastily updated near year's end; I still love that endeavor and have wanted to maintain the practice. Handwritten correspondence, or dropping in out of the blue, and especially taking note of the birthdays of good and special people all seem to be fading customs, or they've been supplanted by social media and electronic communication and the ease of a text message adorned, perhaps, with some emoji or meme or jumpy gif. I still like the idea of a birthday card.

Other holidays sometimes get swept up into my mania, so perhaps you were in my sights when I made Easter, July Fourth, or Halloween cards to send out. I'm also not above executing other random ideas into cards, whether it's because I found it amusing or to note some significant event or to send love or hugs or encouragement.

Although I have stocked up on those nice perforated Avery notecard sets for printing, I also realized a much more affordable route for my grand schemes was simply buying reams of white cardstock and the "invitation"-sized envelopes that fit them perfectly once cut and folded. As long as I keep my excellent color inkjet printer well-supplied, I guess this card-creation indulgence might continue for the forseeable future.