Homemade Cards - More Special than Ever

 

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved making cards.  I think they are more personal than if you just buy one at the store, but that is just my opinion.  You can always look through the cards at the grocery store and get some ideas of what to say inside your own card.

 

For this card, I purchased some heavy card stock in multiple colors, and pulled out my trusty paper cutter from Martha Stewart Crafts, and a few other tokens, including stamps, that are easy to find at your local Michaels or Craft Store. 

 

My project was to make a "Thank You" card to attach to a Red Easel Master's Palette that I had made for a customer of mine at Red Easel.  Instead of having custom labels made for Red Easel, I decided, at least for now, to add a personal touch to the cards when I attach them to the easel and send them out.

 

For this project, I chose to use my Martha Stewart Crafts Light Blue stamp pad...

 

And my Martha Stewart Crafts paper cutter.    Have you ever been in the paper craft isle in Michaels?  The isle with all the Martha Stewart paper craft supplies?  It's enough to make you a crazy person.  Especially if you are a chronic creative like I am.  This is the first time I have ever purchased paper craft supplies and I was so excited to start this project for my palette customers.  See this device above? - You put your paper in the cutter and squeeze.  It cuts your pattern perfectly in the paper.  Then, you just move your paper down and line up the design on the cutter with the design that is already cut out of your paper for perfect cutting every time.  I could cut paper all day with this thing.

 

I also grabbed some ribbon out of a bottom drawer of my sewing supplies dresser in my studio.  I wanted to find the type of ribbon that has a little bit of wire in the sides so that it can be shaped.

 

I have a slew of stamps, but I only needed to find the one that reads "Thank you" - and yes, I found it.

 

I cut the paper stock with the fancy paper cutter after I folded it in half to make it like a card.  Then I stuck one of these fancy scalloped paper things on top of it to make it pretty.

 

Then I took my stamp, pressed it into the blue stamp pad ...

 

and, I stamped the front of the card.

 

I took a glue stick and put glue on the back of a nice heavy stock of white paper that I had already cut to fit inside the Thank you card.  Then I wrote my message of Thanks to my customer for purchasing my handmade Red Easel Master's Palette and I used a marker that looked like the same color as my stamp pad.

 

I punched a hole (with a hole puncher) in the corner of my card and tied the ribbon through the card and around the palette.  I thought it looked very personal and very nice.  I hope my customer thought so too. 

It is easy to make your own cards, and lots of fun too!  I especially like all the fancy paper cutters, and heavy stock paper you can choose from.  It really is enough to make you crazy if you like doing this stuff.  Now my card wasn't anything fancy.  I haven't learned how to get all fancy-schnancy yet.  I've seen some personally created cards in books that would make your head spin.  They are so beautiful.  For now, though, I think this works for me.

If you have children, you might also want to get them involved in creating their own cards - for birthdays, holidays, and Thank you cards.  I think it teaches our children a lot about respect and gratitude, love and appreciation.

Have fun!