The holidays are over. The weather is still cold. The nights are long. If you are anything like me, having a fun project helps me not to feel so blah over the winter. This year, I decided to follow in the footsteps of my grandmothers, who used to compile a list of all the family birthdays, anniversaries, and celebrations to have our cards ready well in advance—sometimes even months ahead.
While buying cards is easy, it’s not always easy on my wallet. Creating personalized cards with custom stamps is a great way to save money and have fun. It’s also an easy craft to enjoy alone, with the kids, or with your pals over a glass (or more) of wine.
Crafting your own cards is a great way to set yourself up for the year ahead, save some money, all while being creative with your free time. Picking out the best birthday cards for your mother in law, a fun thinking of you for your best friend, or even a silly note for your nephew make people feel special, so why not make it a fun project. Your loved ones will appreciate receiving such a personal gift and it gives you something to work on to lighten up your mood.
What You’ll Need
Diving back into card making only takes a few items you might already have lying around the house. Selecting the perfect paper sets the tone for personalizing the card to your friends and family. Whether you chose colored cardstock, printer paper, or blank notecards, the next things to gather are the stamps and ink. Creating customizing birthday stamps, creating anniversary or holiday designs, or even ordering some number stamps is a great way to get started. Using color pencils, pens, and markers can allow you to better control the end result of your designs. Grabbing glue and scissors can set you up for adding extra decorations or layering to your cards.
- Paper: any color or style
- Stamps: custom celebration designs
- Colored pencils, pens, and markers
- Optional: glue and scissors
How-To
Gathering your card making supplies is the first step to design a one of a kind heartfelt card. Starting with single layer cards is a great way to keep it simple, but you can always add layers to level up the design. Get out all your supplies, find some snacks, and make some cards with friends.
Step 1: Step up design and plan
Pinterest or social media sites are a good place to get ideas to help spark creativity, and if you need to order custom stamps now is the perfect time. Planning out where to put everything is pretty helpful to make sure you can fit all the designs and personalize the card for birthday, holidays, or get well. If you already know exactly what you want the card to look like or you are going for spontaneity move right on to cutting or folding paper.
Step 2: Fold your paper in half
Measure paper to make sure it will fit in your envelopes. If folding, make sure the edges of your paper match up and you crease the paper so both sides are flat. If you decided to work on layers or cutouts, now is your chance to add those.
Step 3: Apply chosen stamps
Having an idea of where you want to place your stamps is the best way to begin. Then apply firm and complete pressure with every stamp you add. Creating a special color palette for every person can help make each card more individualized, which you can customize with a variety of ink pads.
Step 4: Touch up the designs
This is where you continue with your creativity and use any colored pencils, pens or markers to add extra drawings or touch up any aspect of the card.
Step 5: Write a holiday or birthday message
Your card is ready for your heartfelt message to your loved one!
Card Design Ideas
Designing cards to celebrate birthdays and holidays can be a bit intimidating without a plan, so we are here with some ideas to help you decide what to create. Deciding what to focus on whether it be hobbies, favorite things, fun quotes, inside jokes, age, or just celebration in general. Tailoring the design based on the personality of your recipient can help make a beautiful and meaningful card. Choosing different colors or going for a monochromatic look can flow with whoever you are creating for. If your friend loves bright colors, choose bold tones for your card marking materials. For a person who appreciates more earthy subtle colors lean into the muted tones and some nature based stamps. Making birthday cards meaningful is the whole point of diy cards, so have fun expressing the individuality of your best friend’s birthday. Custom stamps make the possibilities endless, so use your knowledge of your recipient and create something so unique for them.
Don’t forget to create envelopes with return address stamp to match your cards!
After you have finished your handmade card, wrap it in an equally beautifully crafted envelope. You can use monograms, custom address stamps, or any other personal touches for your envelopes. Making a personalized return address stamp will elevate sending your specially crafted card to everyone. Marking your work with the pride of a custom envelope will demonstrate further just how much you care about making your brother’s birthday so special.
Conclusion
Birthday celebrations and anniversaries are the perfect excuse to start a fun craft and make the best personalized celebration for someone special. Making these easy cards is much better than rifling through endless aisles of store cards and you never need to worry about sending the same card as someone else. Crafting is a fun way to pass time when it is too dark outside to get anything really productive done. Now you can turn a tedious activity like birthday cards into fun with friends.