Business Cards -- Maximum Use; Minimal Cost!

I bet you like to save money as much as I do. I used to watch for online specials before ordering my business cards in various shapes & sizes. My skinny cards (like Moo cards) are double-sided & colorful. They're unique as business cards & pretty as hanging price tags for my necklaces. I also ordered 3 other cards featuring my brand "look" & logo, including a standard business card for handouts, a square card to hold & display my earrings, and a small card to string as price tags for small objects like pendants & bracelets. BUT ORDERING EACH SIZE SEPARATELY WAS RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE! What to do?

BRAINSTORM: To create all these cards, I now watch for specials on standard POSTCARD product! The high resolution image file I create in Photoshop Elements & upload to the online print business is exactly the postcard's size & includes graphics & cut-lines for 3 of the 4 cards sizes I need. Note that I added the orange margin so I wouldn't need to be so careful submitting my "bleed measurements." (I don't like math:) I chop off the orange.

I wanted contact info on the backside of my Moo-like cards, requiring 2 images, with matching cut-lines. I line up multiples of colorful jewelry pics on one side & my logo & contact info on the other side. The extra time spent aligning the back & front cut-lines exactly is worth the effort!

When my postcards arrive, I'm busy with the paper cutter until I've cut enough for the current project, but I can cut through 2 postcards at a time. As I chop, chop, I remind myself that I got THREE TIMES the product for 1/3 the price, & I did it all myself:) So the final image large enough for the postcard contains whatver size & shape card designs I might want, with cut marks to help with my paper-cutting task. The hardest part is preparing any backside image (contact info) so that its cut-lines exactly match the frontside image.

What online print shop do you use? I usually use Vista Print because of their frequent "free" product specials, where I pay only a reasonable shipping fee, plus a one-time fee to upload a particular image.