How To: Simple Notecards

I'm forever buying stationery but I also love making my own cards to send to friends. These simple notecards are really easy to make, and you don't need any fancy supplies to make them.

You'll need some blank card (or ready cut and creased card blanks), envelopes, and any interesting paper you can get your hands on: sheet music, pictures from magazines, coloured paper, brown paper, envelopes with interesting security patterns, bits of gift wrap, etc. You'll also need scissors, a glue stick, a pencil, a bit of thin card (e.g. from a cereal box) and a pile of paper from your recycling bin.

First, choose a shape to use (more on this in a minute) and cut it out. If you're just making one or two cards you can use the paper shape as a template but if you want to make lots of cards, or use the template again in the future it's worth taking the time to glue your shape to a bit of thin card and then cut it out again.

Second, choose some nice paper and draw round your template on the back of it with a sharp pencil (remember to flip your template over if it's not symmetrical). Cut the shape out of the paper.

Third, glue it in place on your blank card. I find the easiest way to do this is to place the shape you're glueing face down on some scrap paper (e.g. old computer printouts from your recyling bin) and apply the glue stick evenly. You can go right up to the edges and over them onto the scrap paper, making sure the shape is totally covered. Then position your shape in the centre of the card and press it down, smoothing it over with your fingers. (You could of course use any glue you're happy working with, or double sided sticky tape if you prefer.)

You can have lots of fun playing around with shapes and different paper patterns.... For these heart and star cards I used shapes cut from magazines, and old sheet music. I think trios of simple shapes always look great.

Regular readers of this blog will know how much I like a project involving autumn leaves. You can either collect fallen leaves to use when making your templates, or you download some sheets of leaf shapes here.

 

I used gold kraft paper, plain brown paper (from an old envelope I rescued from our recycling pile) and sugar paper (construction paper) in warm autumn tones. Play around with colours and combinations of shapes!

Finally, I made some pretty butterfly cards using some butterflies and doilies I had leftover from my butterfly curtain project. You can download the butterfly template here.

 

I layered the butterfly shape with doilies and coloured paper (the blue card is made with two patterns from the inside of envelopes), but I think the simple butterfly shape cut from sheet music is my favourite.

(My tutorials are for non commercial use only, please feel free to borrow photos if you want to blog about my projects but remember to credit me and link back to the original source, and do not reproduce entire tutorials on your site. Thanks!)

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