How to create a trading card with Zazzle

Trading cards make a great gift for your children's sports team or a even as a nice promotional give away. Zazzle has quite a few available templates for you to use, or you can create your own template by following these simple directions.

On your 'My Account' page on Zazzle click on the 'Create Product' button. On Zazzle a trading card is made using the "Chubby" business card size. This is a business card that is 3.5 inches by 2.5 inches, surprisingly the same size as a typical baseball card.

After you select the business card product you'll get a screen similar to the one below. From this screen you can see that you can either start with an existing template or design you own. Zazzle also offers full color printing on both sides of the business card. This works out wonderfully when designing a trading card.

Click on the 'Design a Card' button on the right side of the screen.  This will bring up the key design screen.

On the 'Get Started' screen be sure to change the template size to 'Chubby', which the 3.5 inch by 2.5 inch one. This is where your graphic design skills can really come into play. On the 'Get Started' form you can select the images for the front and the back of the card.

Using a graphic design program you can create an image to the size 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches. For the front you would want to select a nice frame or background image that matches your theme. For the back you can create a table or whatever type of design you wish for putting your information on.

The image below shows what the initial layout looks like by default.  I only added an image to the front of the card, but you could just as easily add one to the back as well.  Zazzle also by default adds all the fields that appear on the left side of the card.

Above you can see the finished layout for the front of the alpaca trading card I designed as a promotional item for our alpaca farm. It can be a little tricky getting the page to delete some of the elements on the page, but keep working at it by clicking the 'x' to the right of it and you will get it.

Most of the elements on the front of the card are customizable elements. If you had nice graphic frame or background you would want to not allow it to be edited. This is set under the 'Advanced Options' along with the name of the elements. Be sure to give the elements descriptive names as they are the prompts for users of the trading card template to enter their information.

Familiarize yourself with the various layout editing tools. Under the 'Edit' and 'Arrange' drop downs there a many options, the most useful of which might be the 'Bring to front' or 'Send to Back'. These are important to layer the elements on the trading card template. You can change the font, color, size and orientation of the text as well.

Prepare the back of your own trading card in a fashion similar to what you did on the front.

The final option is to select the paper type.  There are eight different types of paper available.  Of them all the one I like the best is the indestructible paper.  It costs a little more but could really set the card apart from others.

Finally when you post the item for sale you get to enter the information that will help users find it on Zazzle and beyond.  This is where some SEO helps to get your product noticed on the internet as well.

See my sample:  Alpaca Trading Card