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Make a birthday card
Below are steps for you to make a birthday card within about 20 minutes or so. To do it up as I’ve got it in the sample photo, you will need a few specialty papers, including handmade or mulberry paper, cut to the sizes specified below, some craft wire for embellishment, and a few tools. I love color and texture, and all the fun fonts you can mess around with on the computer, not to mention all the beautiful rubber stamps out there. If you can get ahold of acid-free papers, tapes and adhesives, more power to ya! This make a birthday card project incorporates a couple different techniques for you to learn which means it could take you more than just a few minutes.
Card supplies list - White or even black blank card, measuring 6 ˝” x 5” (12.5 x 16.5 cm) after folding in half
- Multicolored handmade paper (greens, pinks, splotches of gold) cut to same size as card above, 6 ˝” x 5” (12.5 x 16.5 cm)
- Pink handmade or mulberry paper, 3 ˝” x 4 ˝” )(11.5 x 9 cm)
- Green handmade paper or mulberry paper, 3” x 4” (10 x 7.5 cm)
- Ivory cardstock, 2 ˝” x 3 ˝” (6.5 x 8.5 cm)
- Embellishment: Craft wire, gold, medium gauge, approximately 12” to 14” (30 to 35 cm)
- Scissors or paper trimmer
- Pencil
- Ruler
- One-sided adhesive tape, (a.k.a., Scotch tape)
- Brush with medium tip
- Small glass of water
- Double-sided adhesive tape dispenser (…and, tape of course!)
- Jewelry wire cutter
- Jewelry round nose pliers
- Happy Birthday sentiment: use stamp or print on your printer
- Ink pad, black dye ink
TIP for how to make a birthday card or any card making project: When matching your specialty paper colors, as you choose other colored papers to go with, hold them up to the colors you have and see what jives with your eye. In my example, the colors pink and green have a hint of blue in them. So, I made sure my plain colors pink and green “jived” with the multicolor paper, also having the faint blue undertones (somewhat giving the brightness), by hunting in my stash for pinks and greens with bluish undertones. This kind of matching takes some practice. All blues (or greens, etc.) are not created equal, make sense?
Instructions:
With a pencil, trace around the outside of the blank, folded card onto the multicolored handmade paper. Cut with paper trimmer or scissors.
Dip brush into water, paint the water around the edges, following straight down the edge, making sure to saturate the paper out to the edge.
Gently tear the wet areas from the edges of the paper. Set aside to dry.
Cut the green and the pink mulberry papers.
Using your rubber stamp or printer, stamp or print the Happy Birthday sentiment onto the ivory cardstock and trim it to size.
With the jewelry wire cutter, cut the gold craft wire.
Take your jewelry round nose pliers and create a swirl in both ends of the wire --could take a little practice.
Putting the layers together
Using the photo as a guide, attach the layers with the double-stick adhesive tape, attaching the curled gold craft wire onto the back of the green layer. See if you can get the swirls to curve over the corners.
Done! I hope it didn’t take you more than 20 to 25 minutes to make a birthday card, at least, not this one. This doesn’t account for time shopping, etc., or agonizing over paper colors. Hopefully you have something of a paper stash, but once you have it all in hand, should be simple. If you follow some principles in how to put colors together, you can better work with what you have.
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