Cards for Church: What?

Part 2 of a series on Church Card Ministries

In yesterday's post, I discussed the two prongs of our church cardmaking ministry - for church use and for fundraising.  The cards for church use are fully explained in that post.  I am going to focus a little more on the fundraising side.

We maintain THREE card racks.

The racks are stocked as follows: (I am using "section" to indicate one column - so the brightest part of the card rack above, to the left side of the photo, is 2 sections.  I am only including this as an indicator of the relative proportions of the cards that we create. Our proportions have come about by watching "sales" and determining which cards go the quickest.)

• Birthday (3 sections)
• Kids (1 section) - includes birthday, congrats, proud of you, etc.
• Thank You (2 sections)
• Miscellaneous (2 sections)
• Sympathy (2 sections) FYI - this section can be difficult to maintain as it can sit for a long time with average "sales", but if somebody passes away in the congregation, the cards will all disappear.  It is a good idea to have a "stash" of sympathy cards.
• Thinking of You, Thoughts and Prayers (2 sections)
• Get Well (1 section)
• Wedding & Anniversary (1 sections)
• Baby, Pregnancy, Baby Shower (2 sections)

We also have the third rack, hiding in the back of the photo in the shadows, that we pull out for holidays or special church occasions:

• Valentines Day
• Easter
• Graduation
• Confirmation
• First Communion
• Mother's Day - this is a good time to remember the "donation" principle of the church card ministry.  It's heartwarming to see children put in a hard-earned quarter to buy a card for mom or dad!
• Father's Day
• Halloween - we keep these fun, not scary
• Thanksgiving
• Christmas - Be sure to have these out in early November or else people will already have purchased their cards.  It's actually not our bestselling type of card - so many people buy bulk cards or photo cards, but it would be strange NOT to do Christmas cards in a church card ministry

FYI: We often do a few special cards for some "minor" holidays and occasions, e.g. St. Patrick's Day, 4th of July, or Back to School.  It's also fun to do teacher thank you displays with cards and other fun things like hand-crafted post-it note holders.

The purchase of our cards is on the honor system.  We keep a lock box on a table next to our card racks.  You may want to carefully consider this.  I know of one church that has had their cardmaking money stolen twice.  So far, our lock box has stayed put.  We like keeping it out at all times because we have people drop by all week long for cards.

We request a donation of $3/card or 2 for $5.  I think this is probably underpriced for what you get, and I know a lot of the "buyers" agree as they will donate more than is requested.  So it all works out.  We don't scare away anyone by a high price, but we tend to average higher than the price.

Stay tuned this week for more details on the preparation for the ministry and for the actual event!

----------------------

Set 264 - Yuletide Bits and Borders

I wasn't going to do any Christmas cards this week because I am preparing for our monthly church cardmaking gathering and we did Christmas cards last month.  But, when the SplitCoast Color Challenge came up with River Rock, Real Red and Old Olive and I remembered the Stampin' Up Dashing dsp from a few years ago - all my Christmas stuff came back out!

Someday I am going to learn to photograph glitter.  The red glitter on the snowflake is super sparkly and is a great match to Real Red.  There is also a clear coating of glitter on the snowflake strip that you can't see at all!

The sketch for this card comes from Technostamper.  I really like her sketches.  They are fun without relying on bizarre shapes and angles or on a million layers. 

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Yuletide Bits and Borders
• Ink: Stampin' Up Old Olive, River Rock
• Paper: Stampin' Up Real Red, Old Olive, River Rock
• Accessories: Art Institute Christmas Red Glitter, Martha Stewart Crystal Fine Glitter, spray adhesive