Making your own greetings cards can be fun, creative, and a way to send cards that strike a cord with your friend or family’s likes and tastes. Here are five ways to make greetings cards from repurposed materials. Your card making can be sustainable and will cost very few pence/cents. These are not exactly high art, but simple homemade cards are often appreciated. You might fear that your efforts will be ham-fisted, but you’ll probably find that they’re better than you think. Your recipients will probably be impressed that you made the effort, and won’t be critical of a few imperfections. Particularly if you can choose a theme they like.
This is part of my habit of using remnants and scraps, however small. My saving of remnants and scraps knows no bounds.
So, here’s some repurposed materials you might want to squirrel away once you come across them:
Old greetings cards
I’ve written before about re-using your greetings cards to make new cards. Here are some tips to help you make the best use of the cards you have and make the cut-outs look as attractive as possible.
Avoid cutting with a straight line
If you want to cut quickly (I go for speed-cutting), avoid cutting with a straight line. It’s difficult to cut out a motif that is exactly square or rectangular. You’ll only feel disappointed with the results. The slightly wonky, not quite regular appearance will distract the eye away from the image you want to be the focus. My preferred cutting methods are:
- The simple wavy line – fast and quick method, cut with small craft scissors.
- Pinking shears, scallop edge scissors (to cut a regular wavy line), or similar. Cutting takes a little more time with these.
However, if you cut out with a straight line, but cut a random shape, the wonkiness looks fine.
A little extra embellishment goes a long way
What about imperfect cut edges? Adding a little embellishment to edges can distract from minor imperfections. I find it quite therapeutic to shade around edges with a coloured pencil, add some hashes or some tiny shapes to a greetings motif.
Get multiple options from one card
You’ll often find that the design on one card could be split to make two new cards. It’s usually better to keep the cut-out small and add value with some background or layer it with another image. This card offered me one motif and some greetings text.
The two cut-outs could go together or on separate cards.
Packaging and envelopes
Coloured envelopes, coloured tissue paper from presents you’ve received, and other packaging tissue can all be used to great effect. I’ve used attractive card from various goods (eg tea packets), and even Who Gives A Crap loo roll cover too!
I cut up squares of corrugated card to use instead of foam pads to layer motifs over a background. I cut them up in advance, then with a slick of glue-stick, a motif can be layered to add relief to the card.
Magazines
Next time you throw out some magazines, have a look through first with an eye for small photos that would make a good motif for a card. Some images may make a good background. Paste the cut-outs on to waste card, then re-cut.
I’ve used some bought craft paper here too, but a small pad of craft paper lasts a long time if you mix it with saved paper.
Colouring book pages
I usually like crafts that have a practical end-point, so for ages I resisted adult colouring books. Much as I quite fancied the idea of getting colouring pencils out again, I thought I’d be better spending my time on something I’d wear or something for the house. Then I had the idea of a little therapeutic colouring that could find its way on to a greetings card.
Some pages, which are made up of an all-over pattern, could be useful as a background for a greetings card with a cut-out from an old greetings card, or some simple origami. Here (left) I’m trying some origami fishes with some suitably coloured pages. The pattern on the right looks like old-fashioned wallpaper. Any ideas for this one?
Some pages include shapes and images of a convenient size and design for a greetings card. I cut these foxes out of a colouring book page, and aim to send to friends or family that love animals and wildlife.
Buttons, ribbon, string and rafia
Buttons, string, rafia and ribbon saved from received presents or bought goods can add some interest. Cards with non-paper additions can’t be recycled. So, I think it would be a good idea to keep some small printed messages to add on to the back of the card to prompt to tear off these embellishments, or motifs including glitter, before recycling.
Making greetings cards from repurposed materials is a sustainable way to give paper and card scraps a home, even if it might be a temporary home. This might seem time consuming compared to buying your cards, but once you start you might get hooked….
