DIY Designer Cards

It's Holiday season and we all are looking for something special for the special ones. Handmade gifts are undoubtedly one of the best choices but not all of us are crafters. Here's a phenomenal holiday gift idea, that can be made by everyone! Yes, I'm calling it phenomenal because I've been making so many of these cards for the last 3 months that I've lost count. Some of them were requested, some paid.. for wedding invitation, birthday wishes, greeting and so on. Besides the number of designs you can come up with using the same materials are endless! In this I've shared 11 designs for the card. Anyways, buy or make something nice for the special people and don't forget to give one of these handmade designer cards too.

Lets get started!

To make these cards you'll need:

1. Card paper,
2. Craft paper,
3. Embossed paper,
4. X-acto knife,
5. Scissors,
6. Glue,
7. Aida fabric.

You will need a ruler, pencil, x-acto knife and card paper.

Place the card paper on a clean, hard and flat surface. Mark the width and length of the card with the pencil (you don't need to draw lines, only mark the center and both sides of width and length.

Push out only one layer of blade out of the x-acto knife. Hold the ruler very tightly along the width or length of the card. Slightly rotate the x-acto knife while cutting the card, it's easier this way and the cut turns out perfect.

After cutting paper for the card now mark the folding line along the center. Again hold the ruler firmly along the center line and make a half cut using x-acto knife. Now carefully fold the paper along the half cut line.

This technique gives the card a smooth and even fold.

Preparing the card was the hard part but now the fun part starts! Designing these cards are so much fun (and addicting!). For designing these cards you can use materials which are easily available around us, such as small twigs, sticks, dry leaf, craft paper, yarn, thread from aida fabric, tiny stones, glitters, dry roots and much more. All these materials are for detailed designing but there should be a focus element in the design. So, among various flowers I chose rolled paper flowers as it is easy to make even for beginners and turns out really pretty. Check out the rolled paper rose tutorial here.

You can use aida fabric, embossed paper, textured paper to create a background for the design. No matter how you prepare the background just keep in mind to keep at least 2 cm space around the background. Cut the material of your choice for the background and simply glue it on the front side of card with glue. Placing the background on the center is easier but you can also place it along the top, bottom or vertically along the closed edge of card. Do not place the background vertically along the open edge, it ruins the balance of the card.

You can sketch out a design on a piece of paper or arrange the materials (without gluing them) to see how the design might turn out to be. Here's a step-by-step instruction of one of the cards I've made. I used aida fabric for the background.

Cut out a piece of aida fabric (I kept 4 cm space around the background),

Pull out 2-3 threads from the aid fabric to create fringes around the border. Keep the threads, they might come handy in designing other cards,

Carefully glue the aida fabric on the center of the card.

Glue the flowers and leaves on the aida fabric,

You can keep it simple or you can add more details like I did. I added small sticks between the flowers and leaves and also added 2 tiny silver stones on both sides of the aida fabric.

Allow the glue to dry.

While the glue dries make the envelope. Here's a fun and easy envelope tutorial by Jessy Heart Envelope.

Enjoy!