8 Free, Cheap, or Easy Design Resources for Your DIY Greeting Cards and Invitations

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Like your favorite recipe, the end result is only as good as the ingredients you use. The same can be said for designing your own greeting cards and invitations. Knowing where to find quality illustrations, images, patterns, and fonts is key to pulling together a successful DIY.

When you know where to look, the internet makes sourcing material a breeze. Here are some of my favorite go-to sites for finding great (and sometimes free!) resources:

CreativeMarket.com
This is hands-down my favorite place to browse and shop. Whether you’re looking for illustrations, fonts, photos, icons, patterns, textures, or most anything else, the selection is vast and the pricing is great. Even better? Every Monday, they offer six free downloads, making it easy to try out new things and build a catalog of resources.

UnSplash.com
This is an incredible resource for 100% free (use ‘em however you want!) images that are utterly gorgeous. Browse their collection and see for yourself. Pretty unbelievable.

DaFont.com
Great resource for free fonts. A number of these fonts are for personal use only, so always be sure to check usage rights and make sure you’re within the law. In most cases, if you fall for a font that you want to use commercially, a quick email to the designer and a small licensing fee is all that it takes.

FontSquirrel.com
The owners of FontSquirrel claim that all of their fonts are not only free, but also come with commercial usage rights. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Art and design classes online.

MyFonts.com
When you want a professional font with all the fixin’s, you’ll find an affordable and impressive assortment here. Sign up for their newsletter to read interesting interviews with type designers and learn more about the craft.

Brusheezy.com
This site provides free crowd sourced Photoshop brushes. If you’re familiar with brushes in Photoshop, you know the possibilities are pretty endless. If you’ve never paid much attention to brushes in Photoshop before, check out my fun (and short) course for an eye-opening introduction.

Vecteezy.com
Similar to Brusheezy, this site provides free vector based illustrations. Browsing their featured gallery is a great way to jumpstart creative ideas and find some inspiration.

Adobe Color Themes
Stuck trying to pull together a working color scheme? Don’t forget that one of the world’s most powerful color generating tools is right at your fingertips from within your favorite Adobe application. In Photoshop, you’ll find the theme builder tool at Window>Extensions>Adobe Color Themes. In InDesign, it’s under Window>Color>Adobe Color Themes. In Illustrator, go to Window>Color Themes.

For more tips on designing your own invitations, check out Invitations in Photoshop and master the complete process.

Khara Plicanic

Khara Plicanic is an award-winning photographer, author and teacher. She's also the Queen of behind the scene interview at CreativeLive.