Imagine receiving a colorful little envelope inside your mailbox? Unlike emails, getting a personalized birthday card delivered to your mailbox is a deeply personal experience, which makes it all the more welcome to the person that gets it. If you’ve always wanted to know how making your own birthday card helps, here are top three benefits of making your own birthday cards.

Nurtures Creativity
Most people argue creativity is an innate talent. That’s not true at all. As Picasso once said, we’re all artists, the problem is it’s difficult to maintain that motivation as you grow older. Making your own birthday cards can bring out and nourish the artist in you. You have to nurture it, and the best way to get started is by making your birthday cards yourself. You can learn to draw on top of your birthday cards, make origami appliques, or make cut-out details, paint, add stickers, and play with mixed media and much more. Creativity has no boundaries, especially when it comes to birthday cards.

Saves Money
It’s easy to pop into a store and buy a birthday card. Although this is easy, it’s not really personal. These are based out of templates that are produced in the thousands.
Plus, they can be expensive, money that you can put to use on other things. Learning to make your very own birthday cards teaches you to be resourceful. Just because you have money doesn’t mean you have to spent it. By learning to make your own birthday cards, you learn to be a lot more resourceful in other aspects of life as well. You can even start your own birthday card business if you feel you’re good enough. That’s an alternative method to making money. There’s definitely a career path there for yourself if you feel that you can take it to a professional level.

Adds A Personal Touch
Here’s another fact with store-made birthday cards: they’re store-made or manufactured. But by making your own birthday card and sending it to your friends on their birthdays, you deliver a positive and personal message. That personal feeling touches people’s hearts and they appreciate your gift even more, especially since they know and understand that you’re putting that much effort into their special day. That’s a feeling that money can’t buy, especially not with mass produced birthday cards.
It’s pretty easy to buy a card from the store and send your friends and family a present through that. But that’s not something that’s very memorable or efficient. By learning to make birthday cards, you learn a skill that you can use for the rest of your life, save a lot of money, and make a lot of memories doing it.

Whether you are an enthusiastic numismatic or a novice, or whether you are into American numismatics, world coins, bullion or ancients, there are probably certain coins that are you covet than all coins. There are some coins that are crème de la crème in the world of numismatics. Not only are they significant in terms of their value, but these coins are quite rare.

Each of these coins have interesting stories attached to them, which adds to their value. Avid coin collectors covet these coins not only for their artistic value, but also for their historical significance. It is quite interesting to note that all these coins are worth more than their face value.

1955/55 Doubled Die Lincoln Cent
This coin is an error coin. Nonetheless, keen Lincoln penny collectors have an avid interest in this coin. This coin was the result of a simple error during minting. While minting this coin, the United States Mint used a coin die that had two impressions that were offset from each other. After minting, a batch of this coin (about 20,000 to 24,000 coins) were mixed with a batch of correctly minted coins. Since, it was not worth melting the whole batch of pennies, the mint decided to keep the doubled die cent in circulation. However, after the story was published in newspapers, many people pulled the coin from use.

$1 Million Gold Canadian Maple Leaf
This coin is the first, and perhaps the only, million dollar coin to have been ever minted in the world. With 3cm thickness and diameter of 50cm, this coin was minted by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007. It is made of 3527 ounces of 99.999% pure gold. On one side, the coin has an impression of Queen Elizabeth II. On the other side, it has three maple leaves printed on it. There are five of these coins, owned by investors all over the world. The last of these coins was auctioned at a value of approximately $4.02 million in June 2010.

1974 Silver Dollar
The first dollar coin minted by the newly formed US Federal mint is worth approximately $10 million. This coin made of 10 percent copper and 90 percent silver was issued by the US Federal Government in 1794 and 1795. Also known as the Flowing Hair dollar, this coin has an image of the bust of Liberty with flowing tresses. The most expensive coin possessed by a private collector, this coin is quite significant historically.

Gold has always been a valuable investment over the decades. But for gold coin collectors, the value increases tenfold with some of the most valuable gold coins being auctioned for millions of dollars. You will be surprised by the obscene amount of money people out there are willing to pay to get their hands on a rare and rather unique piece of history.

Coins date back centuries when they were first minted and traded as currency in exchange for goods and service. But back then, the value of certain precious metals, as we know today, was quite low. However today, a couple of ounces of gold can easily fetch you a couple of thousand dollars. Keeping the collecting trend in mind, no wonder people are willing to spend this kind of money for a collectible.

Here are the most valuable gold coins ever made.

The Saint Gaudens double eagle: Easily a Mint State 63 and 65 grade, this coin certainly tops the list of numismatics. Numismatics is the study of coin collecting and deals with such rare antiquities and coins. This $20 gold piece is also considered as a work of ancient Greek art. This gold coin is auctioned according to its various grades, making it a very diverse graded coin with prices ranging from $2 million to $3 million dollars accordingly. However, the double eagle has been reportedly sold at prices three times its grade valuation at premium auctions.

Indian head eagle: This is a $10 gold piece with the Mint State 67 grade which can easily fetch over $60000. This particular grade coin dates it back to 1911 and is one of the finest examples of numismatic art, thus ranking among the top gold coins that surfaced and was later auctioned, making it one of the most valuable collectible after the Saint Gaudens double eagle. But this coin will fetch more in any auction

Proof gold coin: This is another quarter dollar piece which dates back to 1895 and one of the rarest coins since only 119 total proofs were made. In the numismatics market, only a few coins remain, making it one of the most sought-after proofs ever made. Proof 65 and 66 graded by the NGC and PCGS are regarded as the more valuable ones.

Apart from the above mentioned coins, there are a number of gold coins which are now in the hands of private collectors having bought in an auction for millions of dollars. The gold grading will give an estimation for what the coin will fetch but in auctions, the coins can fetch anywhere from a couple of thousand dollars to over ten million dollars! The flowing hair dollar being one of the leading examples of what collectible coins can fetch these days.

Collecting coins has been a hobby for many for generations now. The art of collecting coins and valuable tokens, paper currency is also known a numismatics. However, not many know that these vintage collectibles can one day have tremendous value added to their existing state. Coins, especially gold coins, already have value in terms of their coin weight.

Gold and silver has always proven to be a profitable investment, which makes these collectibles worth some money. But it is the history behind these coins which makes them even more valuable collectible, and thus worth a fortune to someone someday.

Here are the most valuable coins ever auctioned in the open market.

1343 Edward III Florin: Fetching a whopping $6.8 million dollars at an auction and rightly so since this coin is one of the oldest and rarest, dating back to 1343 which makes it 670 years old. This coin is so old that only three coins are left of its type, making it highly collectible for coin enthusiasts, serious numismatics and people who are willing to spend insane amounts of money!

1787 Brasher Doubloon: This coin was made by a famous goldsmith back in the day, going by the name of Ephraim Brasher who was sanctioned by the New York State to mint copper coins. The 1787 Doubloon coin was one of the few rare and valuable 22 karat gold coins made by him. This coin was later bought by a Wall Street investment firm for a price of $7.4 million dollars making it a pricey and valuable collectible. This coin is named after the goldsmith, with his initials stamped on the coin.

1907 Saint Gaudens double eagle: Augustus Saint Gauden was tasked with the design of this $20 gold piece which proved rather tough to mass produce commercially owing to its complicated and intricate artwork. Though this coin was mass produced even with a design flaw after the engraved words In God we trust’ was removed, it is still pretty rare. It fetched an incredible sum of $7.6 million dollars, making it one expensive double eagle coin ever produced.

1933 double eagle: A coin with a history of controversy behind it, this coin will certainly fetch top dollars from coin collectors and numismatics. Franklin Roosevelt, then president of the country, had barred owning gold in the year 1933 which was a result of the financial crisis. But still these coins managed to surface later, when their value was nowhere near its original face value fetching a whopping $7.6 million dollars.

If you wish to look stunningly breathtaking at any event, there’s plenty of things that go into making you look like a diva. Your hair, makeup, dress, jewelry, everything has to be on point. The perfect dress would be incomplete without the perfect jewelry. The emphasis here is on how much people in general and women in particular love their jewelry. It makes for the perfect gift on all occasions. One such jewelry that never goes out of style and which can serve as the perfect gift for women of any age is the gold chain. The delicate yet precious yellow metal, woven into different patterns can make any woman happy. But, things are not as simple as they look. You set out to buy a gold chain, and the jeweler would show you different patterns of gold chains, and that’s where you get stuck with the variety of choices.

There’s different types of gold chains and to ease your confusion, the popular ones are listed below.

The bead chain- Beaded chains were almost everyone’s favorite in their school days. However, since you are all grown up now and your love for beads still persists, though you cannot go to work wearing the bead chain, you have a suitable alternate here. You can opt for a gold chain with beads. These beads too would be made of gold and they would be placed at regular intervals along the chain.

The box chain- Gold chains are not just a woman’s jewelry, it is worn by men as well. This doesn’t have to come as a shocker. Of course, men don’t opt for the sleek delicate designs that women usually prefer, they prefer something that is more “tough.” The box type gold chain suits this bill perfectly. There are small box shaped designs crafted through the length of the chain and these are slightly thicker than the usual gold chains.

The Figaro chain- This gold chain has a very unique design. It has flattened links and what makes it all the more interesting is that, none of these links are of the same size. All the links are of different sizes. There is a repeated pattern after 5 short links followed by a longer link.

The mariner chain- There are light-weight gold chains and heavier ones and then there’s the mariner chain. The strongest of all the gold chains, the mariner chain looks sturdy as well. It has uniform links through the length of the chain and each link has a vertical bar in the middle.

The next time you go shopping for a gold chain, you can surely tell the different types of gold chains apart.

This might come across as a hyperbole, but almost everyone guards their precious jewelry with their life. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, so are platinum, gold, silver, and every other precious metal on the face of the earth. Everyone loves to indulge themselves at some point of time. Some people go backpacking to the places that held their fancy forever, while some buy something they had always set their heart upon while window shopping. If you belong to the latter category of people, then every time you feel you should be pampered, you might set out to buy some cute jewelry that had caught your eye.

A woman has a lot of options when it comes to choosing a jewelry. There are chains, necklaces, earrings, rings, anklets, and everything that you can see on the ramp. However, the classic gold chain is an eternal favorite. A gold chain is an ornament that can be worn by you and your grandmother alike. So, if the precious yellow metal has caught your fancy and you just waltzed into a jewelry shop to buy a gold chain, there are certain things one must take care of. Such as these:

The first thing you notice about the gold chain is how it feels in your hands. You have to check whether the gold chain is solid, or merely gold plated, or hollow, which happens in certain cases. There is marked difference in these gold chains. The gold-plated chains start looking old after some time, this is because the plating wears off. The solid one is expensive compared to the hollow ones and lasts longer than the rest. So, check before you buy.

Make sure you check the karat of the gold chain before you plan on buying it. Karats are a measurement of the purity of gold. Low karat gold chains can give you an allergy in certain cases and they have very less exchange value. 24 karat gold is the purest you would ever find.

You need to be sure that your gold chain, though beautiful is sturdy enough. You wouldn’t want to lose it. Check for the clasp and see it is good enough to hold out through the years. A lobster clasp on your gold chain means safety.

Gold chains are available in different patterns. Always go for the ones with a smooth surface instead of the ones with twirls. Your hair might get stuck in these twirls and you wouldn’t want to ruin your precious hair.

So, when you venture out to buy a gold chain, make sure you follow these commandments, so that you won’t regret your choices later.

Birthdays come once in a year and are meant to special. We try different ways to bring a smile on the faces of your friends or family on their birthdays. Sending a birthday card is just one of those ways.

A lot that has changed over the years when it comes to celebrating a birthday. However, the old-school way of giving a birthday card is still a special thing to do and is something that is here to stay for the years to come.

Birthday cards come in different shapes, sizes, styles, and formats, and can be customized too. Needless to say, there is always a difference between a birthday card that you made and a card that you purchased. Thanks to the Internet, they can now have numerous ideas to help you make birthday cards.

If you’re looking for ideas to inspire you, here are the options that you have:

Types of birthday cards
DIY Origami birthday cards
Do it yourself birthday cards are very popular. Origami is an art of paper folding associated with Japanese culture. Origami is a very old form of art and is still used today for making different paper art. DIY origami cards are easy to make. All you need to do is follow a set of instructions available online and make a beautiful birthday card.

Quilling or paper filigree birthday cards
Quilling or paper filigree is an art form that makes use of a quilling tool and thin strips of paper. The strips come in different width and length size and are rolled into different shapes and sizes and later glued.

They are used as an embellishment to decorate and make different designs on a sheet of paper. They are easy to make and you don’t need to follow any special instructions or procedures. This is one of the most popular birthday card designing arts and gives a 3D effect to the cards.

E-birthday cards
Go eco-friendly by not wasting paper and send an e-birthday card to your loved one. E- Cards are cheap and convenient. E-cards are available for different occasions and you can customize them as well. Musical e-birthday cards are also available.

GIF birthday cards
Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is another popularly used format to send birthday messages. This format supports 8 bits per pixel for an image. It supports both animated and static images. It allows a separate palette of 256 colors in each frame. GIF are popularly shared on WhatsApp, Hike, and other social media platforms.
Use any of these options to send a birthday card to someone you love and make her birthday special.