Birthday Card Ideas
Making your own birthday cards will not only save you money, but each card is made with the recipient in mind and is therefore so much more personal – and you can guarantee they won’t receive a duplicate of your card! Many cards are kept long after the others have been thrown away or recycled and, depending on the recipient, may even make their way into keepsake boxes and scrapbook albums, to be enjoyed for years to come.
Pretty Design Birthday Cards
It’s well known that girly cards are so much easier to design! The colours tend to be bright and fresh and the subject can range from flowers, shopping, animals, birds, clothes, chocolate or gardening to simply pretty papers and ribbons. Just follow a theme or interest the lady you’re making your card for has and you can’t go wrong! For a quick and stylish card first cut 12 small rectangles of equal size from different but co-ordinating patterned papers. Arrange these pieces in a 4 x 3 grid formation, equally spaced, and glue onto a large rectangle of cream cardstock. Mat this piece onto coloured cardstock and trim to leave a narrow border. Then punch flowers from plain cardstock and attach to the panel with brads. Stamp your greeting onto a tag, ink the edges and attach to the panel with a punched flower and brad. To finish, stick the decorated panel to a square card blank using 3D foam tape. This design can be varied using more or less flowers and is great for making batches of cards.
Crafting Cards For Him
Designing cards for men is a little trickier but there are more and more embellishments becoming available now to make designing cards a breeze. The colours on men’s cards tend to be browns, blues, greens and reds, but that doesn’t mean they have to be dark, heavy colours. You can vary the shades and add more or less white or cream to the design to change the weight of the colours and mix in a little orange or yellow if the design allows. Peel-off stickers and coloured stickers are great for masculine cards, as there is a wide range of sporting themes available. They can be added to a tag or matted and layered for a simple, clean look. As with Ladies’ cards, try to think of what interests the person you are making the card for; for example, someone who loves being outside in their garden could have their card embellished with ready-made miniature gardening tools and some flowers, or perhaps add a pocket to the front of your card and tuck a packet of seeds inside. Finish the card with a stamped, handwritten or peel-off greeting.
Creating Children’s Birthday Cards
Children’s cards are great fun to make. You can really go to town on the colours and fill the front of the card blank with a huge array of embellishments. Most children are ‘into’ a particular toy or character, or have developed an interest in sports or music or such things. Use this as your starting point and build your card around it. They often have a favourite colour, too (usually pink or lilac for girls!) and this can be incorporated into your card. Also, children love reaching the milestone of being a certain age so you might simply adorn your card with an oversize chipboard number, matted on patterned paper and embellished with brads, buttons or ribbons.