Create Handwritten Snail Mail Cards with the Felt App and Google Photos

Hi, everyone. This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, I’ll show you how I use the Felt App from my iPad to send beautiful handwritten, personalized greeting cards and thank you notes without ever getting up from my chair. 

Perhaps this is a little antiquated. After all, I’m someone who retrieves the snail mail from my mailbox approximately once per week. It usually looks like this. I’m pretty sure my mailman hates me.  But for me, there are some occasions when a text or email just won’t do.  Thank yous are always better in print.  Plus, I have some traditional older folks in my life who insist on greeting cards to celebrate occasions. Now, this is something I didn’t grow up with. My parents did not send greeting cards.  They were cheap in almost every way, so we tended to make cards from scratch.  So, I still prefer to send something a little more personalized than just a signed greeting card. And now, I have found an app, which makes this process super easy. 

Felt is an iPhone/iPad app that is free to download. It allows you to design a card, personalize it, and then handwrite a message and delivery address.  And they will print it, stamp it, and send it for you!  All without you ever having to leave your chair.  Genius.  They charge just $3 a card, which is actually cheaper than most generic greeting cards these days!

Felt uses these cute, almost square cards which they call “frames”.  Their default option is just one frame, which has a personalizable front and back — kind of like a 4” square post card.  You can add additional frames up to a maximum of 4, which Felt will accordion fold together and put in a single envelope. There are tiny perforations in the folds in case you want to separate each frame to keep or display.

Let me show you how it works. My grandma’s 95th Birthday was last week, so I sent her a Felt card. Let’s use that as an example. Once you enter the app and create an account, you tap the plus sign to choose between 3 kinds of cards. First, let’s select

• Greeting Card - the featured cards will be whatever is in season right now, but you can tap on the menu to choose from one of the categories and there are a ton. In this situation, I’m going to choose birthday.  There are a bunch of cute designs, some of which are less appropriate for a 95 year old than others. I’ll pick this one that I think she’d like.  Okay, now that is on the front of my frame. I can edit this further by tapping it and editing this with typed text, or handwriting in marker or pen. I can also change the ink color. So, I’m going to add a little text for personalization.   Once I’m finished, I click the check mark and now I’m going to work on the back of the card.  Again, I can use the same edit tools to handwrite a message. I can also make the lines go away if I don’t need them (but I always need them!)  And I can tap on the magnifying glass to make the screen larger for ease of writing. In enlarged mode, this arrow button advances to the next spot for writing.  So, I’ll write a personal note and hit the check mark when I’m done. Okay, if I’m ready to send the card at this point, I tap the arrow to go to the next step. I can preview my card here swiping right to check the back. When I’m satisfied with that, I swipe left to move to the envelope. Tapping on the address field brings up an editable area for you to handwrite or type the destination address. Once you are finished, hit add to order. At this point, the app will ask if you want to save this address to the address book. I like this feature for frequent recipients. Next, Felt will ask if you want to send it now (2-5 day delivery — they have International options also) or at a future date. This is nice since you can do this all in advance and just set the date in advance to make sure it gets there on time. I won’t show you check out, since it is straightforward, but I like how they save my credit card number, making this whole process even easier. 
• Photo Card - Okay, let’s go back and this time, let’s choose to send a Photo Card.  This is the type of card I send the most often.  Who wants a generic card, when you can get a photo card?  I also find that people love getting old photos of themselves.  Since I can find all of the pictures of a specific person so easily in Google Photos (for more info on that, watch Part 4 of my series on managing digital photos) So, I go into Google Photos and search using my Grandma’s name.  I’m going to use this adorable photo.  I save it to my Camera Roll by choosing the Share icon and then Save Image. Now, I go back into Felt and this time when I start a new card, I choose Photo Cards instead and I pick the picture that I saved to my Camera Roll.  I can use 2 fingers to pinch out, enlarge, and essentially crop my photo. That looks good. Okay, Felt gives you 3 filter options, none, special Felt filter, and black and white.  Usually the special Felt filter is nice on the paper they use for printing. Then, you can choose to put a little razzle dazzle on the card with some fun designs.  Push this button up here to see the design categories. Let’s see what they have for birthdays. This is kind of cute. I’ll use that. Okay, now I’m going to push the arrow to go to the next step, but you should know that once you push it, there doesn’t seem to be a way to edit the photo again without starting the process all over.  So, make sure you are happy with what you’ve done!  So, now this should look familiar. You can add text or typing to the photo and then write on the back just the same way we did before. 
• Add frames - the last 2 examples were just one frame cards with a photo or graphic on the front and writing on the back.  You can add more frames up to 4 total, each one with the same format of image on front, writing on back. Felt will print them all together, accordion fold them, and stick them in the same envelope. Each additional frame is $1 extra. In order to add a frame, just hit Add next frame and the app will take you back through the exact process we just went through.  
• Extras - I’ve never done any of this, but Felt allows you to add the following items: Visa gift cards (these actually replace the image on the front of the card), cash (they will actually stick a $20 bill or whatever in the card for you), some physical gifts like flowers, or framed photos. It’s almost Halloween, so they are running a pumpkin carving kit special right now.  All of this costs extra, but it definitely streamlines the gift giving process.  

I love this app and use it for greeting cards, thank you notes, and just to send cute photos that I come across. After all, it’s such a nice surprise these days to get something that isn’t junk mail in the mailbox.  Let me know what you think!  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!