Classhacks

10 Uses for Printable Business Cards

Those 10 to a sheet printable business cards from Avery and other brands are great for creating a nice quick business cards, but we here at classhacks have found several other ways to use them as well. Those 2” X 3.5” wonders can be used as gift tags, inventory tags, tickets, art gallery labels and even puzzles. If you need some help setting up your document, I have included a little help at the bottom of the page.

Inventory Tags

I have started using business cards to create inventory tags for things in my room. I use a mail merge to do sequential numbers and add them to a gmail address using the + sign (like horrayyoufoundme+100501@gmail.com …ps this isn’t a real address), anything after the + gets ignored.

Here is how it’s done:

1. Create an excel spreadsheet and label the first column number or whatever.
2. Put a 1 in the first row under the label and then fill down as far as you need to go. (I actually started with 1001001, just for fun)
3. save the spreadsheet
4. Use the mail merge to create your cards, If you need help see at the bottom.
5. I put the name of my school, the phone number of the school and my email (with the + and the number) on the front of the card.
6. I also added lines for information on the back of the card.
7. Print them out and hole punch them, reinforce the hole, laminate, and hole punch again.
8. Attach them to your assets.

Tickets

Forget those old tickets on a roll, you can use business cards as a very effective ticket with nice graphics instead. If you are looking to add numbers, look at the inventory tag on ideas on how to sequentially number. Also, if you are looking to turn the numbers on their side, Graham Mayor has some very thorough instructions.

Gift Tags

All you have to do is add a festive picture, a To: and From: and you are ready to go. If you want to get fancy, you could mail merge in your recipients. A rather lengthy explanation of how to do this is here

Art Gallery Tags

Our art teacher uses the business cards to create tags for the walls of the school. She just makes sure that the words inside are centered both horizontally and vertically.

Name Badges

For quick name badges in a pinch, use a business card with the person’s name in big letters (like 36 point) and tape it to your shirt. It isn’t perfect, but it will do the job.

Puzzles

Set your margins at .75” on the sides and .5” on the top and bottom, then add in a picture that you want to scramble up. Print onto your business cards and break apart and you have a nice puzzle. This could be an easy time-waster in class. Also, if you are looking for more of a jigsaw puzzle style, printable jigsaw sheets are available.

Origami

As with any paper, you can fold business cards into awesome things using origami. Malachi’s origami page has tons of great ideas that you can try, some of the links seem to be dead but there are some really cool pictures. For extra credit you can try to make a Menger Sponge apparently it only takes nine years.

Pocket Ruler

You can print a nice little ruler onto a business card for when you need to measure things less than 3.5 inches long. The weprintcolor website has an image that you can add to your business cards for this very purpose.

Mini Hipster PDA

The Getting Things Done friendly Hipster PDA can be made in a mini form with business cards according to 43 Folders. This may be a little to small for my use, but it is worth a try.

Actual Business Cards

Amazingly enough, some people use these business cards to create business cards. Business Card Land is a good resource for cool looking cards that can create online. Just fill in the information and then download a printable pdf.

I’m sure there are hundreds of other uses for business cards. Have you used them in a cool way? If so, let us know in the comments.

Setting up your cards in Word

Before you can try any of the these great ideas, you need to setup your document in Word to use the format of the page. As much as I use Google Docs, they have yet to add a few functions and mail merge/labels is one of them. I’m sure that you can do this in Open Office as well, I just haven’t tried.

To setup your document:

1. From the menu at the top select Tools-Letters and Mailings-Mail Merge. (You can use the envelopes and labels, but you end up without the Update all Labels function)
2. In Step 1 select Labels
3. In Step 2 click Label Options and Select the Avery number listed on your box of business cards.
4. In Step 3 choose a list or excel spreadsheet (if you aren’t using the mail merge, you still have to do this, it’s worth the step to use the update all labels)
5. Format your first label for whatever you want
6. When you have your first label the way you want it, click Update all labels and all of the others will look the same. You can do this over and over until you are happy. (see I told you it was worth it)
7. Print or save.
   

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