Making Handmade Birthday Cards

I love creating handmade birthday cards and have been doing so for around 20 years. I have found it very gratifying, relaxing and rewarding to create my own handmade cards. It can be a good method to relax, by sitting with all of my papercrafts things all spread out next to me and to really allow the inspiration to flow!

A hand crafted card can be as complicated or as simple as you wish it to be. A very simple design can be extremely attractive and exceedingly effective. Uncomplicated designs are perfect for first-timers to card making to begin with. You could try mounting a die-cut decoupage image onto a plain blank card with a peel off sticker message to finish the handcrafted card, a super easy design to create without a great deal of gear required, but nonetheless very interesting and effective.

Once you have mastered simple designs, have a shot at adding to those designs. Introduce an additional embellishment like a bow or perhaps a pre-made topper. Start incorporating background papers to a section or all of the card blank and include glittery or pearlised accents with decorative glues. Rather than a decoupage image, have a go at rubber stamping a picture onto some card, colour the rubber stamped image with colored pencils or watercolour paints, trim around the stamped picture in a rectangular shape or square shape and then put that stamped picture on your card blank. Your own ideas will soon come to be bigger, better and more elaborate designs. By using a minimal amount of work you can actually come up with some very impressive designs.

Whenever you begin to create a Birthday card, first of all it is advisable to give thought to whom the greeting card is for. Is it for a teenager or an adult, might it be for a male or a female, precisely what are their passions and hobbies?. It is usually good to integrate a little something personalised into the birthday card. If for example your card will be for a soccer player, a soccer picture, with soccer embellishments will create the ideal birthday card and would suggest that a large amount of deliberation has gone in to the card.

Once you have decided upon the concept for your card, you will need to decide on the colour scheme. A colour scheme for a card could be guided via the colours in a decoupage image or perhaps a pre-made decoration that you have already decided on. Pick out a couple of colors from that decoupage picture or decoration and work with those colours with the entire card, colour co-ordinating any ribbons, accessories or backing papers to those two colours. If you use a rubber stamped picture then you'll be able to colour that picture using your individual colour scheme and build on that scheme by using colour co-ordinated additions.

To personalise the hand made birthday card, you could have the person's name within the theme of the card. This can be accomplished with the use of peel off sticker lettering, clear alphabet stamp lettering or should you have a steady hand, you'll be able to hand write his / her name using a decorative ink or glitter glue.

Lastly printing an insert for the card which has a lovely personalized message like a poem or lovely message definitely finishes off your hand-made birthday cards.

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