All of these are important factors but remember that card-giving also has its seasons eg. birthdays, anniversaries, graduation days, Christmas, Halloween, New Years, and many more. To be truly unique, you have to come up with great styles that are off-the-shelf and here are some of them:

For birthday cards/birthday announcements:

1.For younger children, try making cards that have paper folding or origami. The most famous designs are origami animals such as birds (specifically the swan) and frogs. This would give the 3D effect for the birthday card. With great artistic presentation, this would be a hard-to-forget card.

2.In the United States, there is a great way to greet people who are over the age of 80. You can actually request for a birthday greeting from the White House. Get this unique birthday card by sending the recipient's personal information; his name and home phone number. Send this information to the The White House, Attention: The Greetings Office, Washington D.C. 20502-0039. The recipient should be able to receive the card about ten days before his big day.

3.There are greeting card software programs that can be downloaded from the Internet - make good use of them. Key in the baby's information onto his picture and send it out as a birthday announcement. It is hassle-free and unique.

4.You could also send out your baby's footprint on paper with his birth details.

5.There are also photo sharing web sites which could help in sending out baby announcements for you. Just give the people who would visit your web site the correct password and they should be able to gain access without any problems.

For graduation cards:

1.Most graduation card-givers just hand out boring cards with a check inside. These are so predictable; so to be unique, send your best wishes to the new graduate by making a card that is literally made of money. Just make a funny quip about it so as not to stress the point that it's not all about the money but also you wishing the graduate a great career ahead.

2.Instead of the usual card, the giver could provide a book with the card inside and some other additional gifts. This means that the recipient should go through the entire book to be able to find your gifts (and your greeting card!).

For wedding announcements/wedding cards:

1.Being able to make homemade wedding announcements would save the couple on some more bucks. A classic photo of the couple could serve as the card with some of the usual details on the back of the photograph. The most effective color for the photograph could be black and white or sepia - this is minimal yet classy.

2.Using the same concept on the color of the photographs, this time, put these photos in front of the card. Punch holes on the top of the photograph and also on the card. Then join both by tying a ribbon, taking care not to tie too tightly else the photograph would not flip.

3.For wedding cards, still the best type of greeting the couple would like, would be to put their wedding announcement photograph on the card that you are going to give to them. Add up some frills and you are sure to make them happy.

For all other occasions, be sure to send the right card with the right decoration. Christmas cards often come with red, green, and gold glitters with photographs of bells, Christmas trees, a star, gifts, etc. For Halloween cards, the most common cards come in black and red; black and orange; or black and white (well, you can get out of this uniformity by using another color but making sure to put in the correct designs such as witches, bats, black cat, spiders, coffins, graves, etc).

These are just the most basic card-making tips that anyone can begin with, but they are highly unique and a card that the recipient would surely remember (maybe even longer than the giver!).