How to Make Professional Looking Cards

It is sometimes really hard to make meaningful cards for people with the simple materials you have at home. I hope after you read this instructable you will have new inspiration and will be motivated to make a meaningful card.

Cardstock paper (thick paper)

Scissors

Gluestick

Old art

Old Calendars

Misprinted documents

Pen doodles

Optional:

Decorative scissors

Stickers

Collage paper

Hole punches

Paper cutter

washi tape/decorative tape

printed coloring pages

colored pencils

Watercolors

Pens

Envelope

Collect your materials and choose a color scheme based on what you are inspired by. I printed out a document, but I forgot to run spell check before printing (oops). But now they are my new art medium! I also chose this dark purple paper for the background, black paper, old coloring pages, and some old ink doodles I did a long time ago. I also selected some old coloring pages.

Fold the card and cut it to the desired size. Be mindful that if you are planning on mailing your card, choose an envelope and cut your folded card to size before you start gluing things down. Trust me, it will save you heartache.

I took a few colored pencils and drew some lines over the text to add variation. If you want you can tear the paper or add pencil marks to add texture. I colored the coloring pages with my color scheme and selected a few pieces of paper to use in my design.

Choose the background paper and the foreground papers. I chose plain black as the background and cut out a few rectangles from my ink sheet, the printed document, and the coloring page. I also found my <3 hole punch and cut out some light purple to contrast with the darker colors. I would recommend adding contrast, especially if you are working with darker colors. I'd recommended going as simple as possible.

Arrange your papers the way you like best. (I'd advise putting the background paper as centered as humanely possible.) Glue down. Be very generous if you are using a glue stick (especially for the smaller pieces) to prevent stuff from falling

Let dry. This is a very important step as things can get out of place if not dried properly.

Add a personal note. If your card color is dark like mine, write with a white color pencil/pen OR glue write your message on light-colored paper that matches the color of your design, cut it out, and glue. Before you write, I advise marking some parameters so it's not too big/small when you cut it out.

Done! now all you have to do is give it to the intended receiver!