DIY MOO Cards

My DIY Moo-like cards printed on my inkjet printer.

I first learned about Moo last year when bloggers preparing for the Urban Sketching Symposium in Barcelona were showing off the cards they had printed by the online company. Especially popular were the double-sided, 2.75-by-1.10-inch Moo MiniCards. I was tempted to do the same, but I never got around to it. Instead, I simply printed a stack of conventional-size business cards with my self-portrait, contact information and Urban Sketchers info (the same cards I hand out when I’m sketching and someone asks me about Urban Sketchers). They didn’t have sketches printed on them, so they weren’t as cool as MiniCards, but it was still fun to exchange them at the symposium.

This year I recently started seeing Moo cards again on blogs I read, and I felt tempted again. Why not order a stack of Moo MiniCards, too? I picked out several sketches that I thought would reproduce relatively well in a tiny format and started going through the Moo site. Then it struck me: Why don’t I print them myself the same way I print my usual cards?

Shown at lower right is the front of the cards (I have both portrait and landscape formats) printed with my Bitstrips-like self-portrait (done without the app, of course) and contact info. The backs are printed with several sketches that best represent my hometown and the kind of sketching I like to do. It took me only a few minutes to print them on my inkjet printer (although cutting them apart with my paper trimmer took quite a few more minutes). I used matte-finish card stock that I bought at Office Depot.

A friend (you know who you are) once affectionately called me “the Martha Stewart of urban sketching.” I wanted to deny it. But I guess I can’t.