I am and always have been a crafty person. For years in my early adulthood, I spent hours scrapbooking. I took great pleasure in printing my memories and making them look beautiful on the page. Fastforward a few years and I have finally admitted to myself and accepted that I just don’t have the time for traditional scrapbooking.
I have, however, kept my love of making cards. When time doesn’t permit me to make cards for my loved ones on special occasions, it is a pain-staking process for me to visit the card aisle and pick out a pre-made card. I just find there’s so much bullshit. Here is how much I love you and how much you deserve and blah blah blah. I’m exhausted just thinking about picking out a card. I like things to be straightforward and I’d much rather put the effort into crafting a card specifically for someone (in today’s case, my auntie) instead of stressing myself out over choosing a store-bought card with someone else’s message. (*Nothing against other people giving these cards or receiving them, it’s just more my style to make cards myself!)
My auntie has a big birthday coming up so I thought I would take you along with me in the process of making her card today!
I tend to choose simplicity when crafting cards. Sometimes I’ll choose a pretty pattern that will stand out, but today I went with some colour in accents set on some neutral-coloured backgrounds.
I chose this deep red, almost plum-coloured ribbon and flower accented with some pale yellow.
I don't honestly plan out how I'm going to design a card before I start; I usually let the materials speak to me and grab what I think will work along the way! But in the spirit of blogging about making a card and being organized along the way without having to take 100 pictures, I tried to pre-plan my card and chose the embellishments ahead of time!
I should take a moment to admit that I am a bit of a perfectionist, especially when it comes to things that I create. (Okayyyyyyyyy that’s an understatement.) When I make a mistake, I usually try to just roll with it and cover it up! I hand-wrote “Happy Birthday!” on the front of the card, but I messed up part of it. Of course! But never mind that, I just took another piece of the same background paper, re-wrote the message and glued that on top, framing it with my favourite black gel pen. Problem solved! Now the message stands out a little bit while still keeping the neutral theme of the card!
Rewind for a sec! The flower didn’t work. I ripped it off and just went with a plain white button fastener instead. It took a few tries, but I got the ribbon to stick with some double sided-tape and staples! With some convenient placement of buttons, I covered up some mistakes, glue and the staples. I also added a bit of texture because I had taken off a piece of the double-sided tape and it left a mark. I just dragged the sharp edge of my scissors along different places on the card and made similar markings to my mistake. You’d never know if I didn’t tell you!
The front of the card was still feeling a little bit plain to me, so after I thought about it a little, I decided to trace the edge of the textured paper with my trusty old black pen to help the rest of the card pop.
For the inside of my cards, I usually frame a plain piece of paper over a nice patterned paper, but this time I used some neutral stickers and wrote special phrases on them instead. I’m really happy with the way it turned out!
One special touch that I add to all of my cards is on the back. I made this logo for my work after Brad and I got married and my initials changed. It’s where the inspiration for my website logo came from!
I am proud of how this card turned out, though it is nothing like what I imagined when I set out to make it for my auntie! It never is!
Til the next birthday, anniversary, holiday or event,
Anya