Post Cards – making it personal

I remember getting post cards from my Grandma and Grandpa Garling when they would go to Texas, I always liked getting a post card from the road.

When we travel, it seems that every place you stop at sells postcards, while these cards are nice and have spectacular photos, they are not personal. Here’s how to make them personal….

What I like to do since I take so many photos is to print my own post cards from the road. I take a little Canon Selphy printer with me along with some adhesive post card backs.

You could also simply print your photos at a corner drugstore or walmart/target/meijer, etc and then put the postcard back on them.

When we stop for the night I will import all the photos into the computer and find several photos I like from that day, edit them and then print them while mom writes the post card out. Then we put them together and be sure to drop them at the post office to be cancelled with that city’s postmark.

Here are some links to what I use.

Printer:

Canon CP900 Printer – Amazon (current Model is the CP1200). I like this printer because as you can see it is small and does not take up much room.

Canon has made newer models of this printer line, pretty much any Canon Selphy is going to be the same as they use the same media kit. The difference is the connectivity that the printer has.

With these printers you can print your photos an amazing number of ways

Simply hook your camera directly up to the printer with the cable
Put the SD card from the camera into the card reader on the front
Wirelessly through the Canon Easy Photo app on you iOS or Android or wirelessly from your computer.

Other printer manufacturers: Other printer makers do make compact photo printers and your home printer can print photos as well. The key difference is that the Canon Selphy line is a Dye Sublimation printer. The prints are dry and waterproof right out of the printer. This is important because your postcards may get moisture on them when mailed and delivered during the rainly and wet times of the year. This is why I do not recommend printers like the Epson Charm.

Paper:

The media kit for the printer will include the paper that you must use and the ink ribbon. The standard KP-108IN includes 108 sheets of paper in 18ct packs and 3 ribbons that are good for 36 prints each. The paper is packaged this way because the paper try holds only 18 sheets of paper, so 2 paper packs should equal 1 ribbon.

Canon makes different size paper, even stickers, so you do not always need to print 4X6 photos, but should always print a full sheet as you will waste a whole panel set from the ribbon and you cannot re-feed the paper into the printer

Some people have noticed that the ribbon and paper do not end at the same time. Running two printers and using the same box of paper, I cannot tell. There is also a rumor that everytime the printer is powered off and on that the ribbon advances through a whole print and this is why they don’t end at the same time. Again, I have not seen this.

Post Card Stock:

I have used the Freezr Frame post card stock before, but there are many out there. This is what I have ordered before and it works well.

A note here: the “4×6″ that the selphy produces is not actually 4×6 inches. You will have to trim the postcard back down by 1/8” on the width and height. I do this as soon as I get them so I am not on the road having to cut with scissors.

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