The custom of making and sending greeting cards can be traced back to ancient China, where good will messages to celebrate the New Year exchanged. The ancient Egyptians are known to have conveyed their greetings on papyrus scrolls.

By the early 15th century, Europeans were exchanging handmade paper greeting cards and the Germans are known to have printed New Year's greetings from woodcuts as early as 1400. Handmade paper Valentine Cards were being exchanged in various parts of Europe in the early to mid-15th century.

However, by the 1850s, the greeting card had been transformed from a relatively expensive, handmade and hand-delivered gift to a popular and affordable means of personal communication, largely due to advances in printing automation. Later, technical developments like color lithography in 1930 propelled the manufactured greeting card industry forward.

During the 1980s however, the trend began to turn, with consumers increasing looking for greeting cards that were differentiated from the standard offering and in the late 1990s a new market segment in hand made cards was (and still is) developing quickly.

Many people with interests in allied crafts such as scrapbooking and stamping began to use their skills to start making handmade cards and this has contributed to cardmaking becoming the very popular and often profitable hobby we see today.