Make and Takes » Card Patterns

Bloomin’ Handmade Greeting Cards You Can Plant

Little Birdies — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:28:59 +0000

You’ve might have seen seed paper recently. It is homemade paper with flower seeds in it. When it is planted in the ground and given lots of TLC it will bloom into beautiful flowers you can enjoy. Here is a tutorial for a project using seed paper.

First, you need to make the paper.

Use paper you have around your house. This is a great way to recycle old scraps. Tear them up into small pieces and place in a blender. Add enough water in the blender so the paper is covered and blend.

When your paper is nice and evenly blended you can add your seeds. Unplug your blender and use a wooden spoon to gently stir the seeds into the paper mush. Do not blend them!

Now it is ready to be shaped. Place a colander in the sink and pour the paper mush into it. If you have large holes in your colander like I do, go ahead and place a towel in it to catch the pulp, but not the water.

Place a towel on the counter and if you have a piece of felt, place the felt on top of the towel. Then gently pour your seeds and paper pulp on the felt and spread evenly out.

Take another towel and press it down on the paper pulp to help dry the excess water. You can now blow dry the paper or let it sit out overnight to dry.

When your paper is dry, cut it out into a flower shape. Make a simple card with cardstock and glue the flower to your card. Feel free to get creative here and draw, stamp, or cut out a stem. If you don’t like flowers, make a cute butterfly or tree. The options are endless and no matter what shape you choose–it will be a hit with the recipient of the card.

Make sure you add a message somewhere on your card to let the recipient know they can plant it!

Little Birdie Secrets are regular contributors to Make and Takes and was born from the crafting obsession of three friends living in the Pacific Northwest. Our mission is to share the wealth of fun projects and helpful tips we find in books, on the Internet, and sometimes in our own imaginations. Come visit us at www.littlebirdiesecrets.com.

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“Going Batty” 3D Halloween Card

Marie — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:41:56 +0000

This Halloween Bat card comes alive with tissue paper wings. He’s making his way to your house to give all a good SCARE!

Supplies for 3D Bat Card:

cardstock
paper cutter
black tissue paper – a 3×12 inch piece
black art paper
white crayon
letter stickers

Fold your cardstock piece in half to form a card. Then decide if you want to put your bat on the outside of the card or the inside for a little surprise.

With the black paper, cut out an oval for the body of the bat and glue it onto the card. I used a black marker to draw on the bat’s ears and a white crayon to draw on eyes, mouth, and fangs (he is dracula of course!)

Using the paper cutter, slice a 1-2 inch slit on either side of the bat’s body. Don’t got through to the end, just cut a little opening for the tissue paper to go through.

Now thread the tissue paper through each slit to form the bat’s wings. This can be a tight squeeze and your tissue paper may get scrunched, but you can straighten it out after. I also cut each end of the tissue paper with zig-zags for more effect.

To finish it off, use the letter stickers to make the words “Happy Hallow’EEK” or some other fun Halloweeny saying. Now this card is ready to give to a friend along with some spooky treats, maybe these Pumpkin Bites from Bakerella.

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Sew a Fabric Yo-Yo Stationary Card

Marie — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:07:11 +0000

Guest Post by Lyndsey of The Stationary Place

I’ve always loved paper. Stationery, patterned paper, note cards, letterpress – I think paper is gorgeous and I love all of its different uses.

More recently, I’ve been on something of a crafting binge – and for my last birthday I asked for a sewing machine. Much to my seamstress mother’s dismay, so far I’ve only used it to sew paper. Why? Because I decided my new sewing skills would look best when used in conjunction with my favorite supplies. Who wants to stitch together a shirt when you can stitch a piece of handmade stationery? Not me. [Twisted, I know. But someday I’ll try the shirt too :) ]

So, I thought I’d share one of my latest projects – to help you see just how easy it is to combine the world of sewing with the world of paper. Using a sewing machine adds a great handmade touch and really personalizes things.

Okay, here we go: The Yo-Yo Card

You’ll need some colorful fabric, scissors, a blank card, a needle and thread and of COURSE a sewing machine.

I’m always looking for fun ways to incorporate fabric into cards [see a brilliant – and easy! – way to make a quilted fabric note card here, from the MADE blog]. I’ve seen these cute fabric yo-yos popping up all over etsy and the blogosphere, and thought “those would look great on a card!”

To make a yo-yo, cut a circle out of any fabric. By hand, make a running stitch around the edge of the circle and then pull the string till the circle bunches together; sew a few stitches in the middle to keep it together.

It should look like this when you’re done:

Next, get your paper supplies out. I took a pre-cut, blank cardstock card and sliced out a smaller piece of sturdy green paper to use as my canvas.

Now’s the fun part: get your sewing machine ready! I wanted to stitch stems and grass for my little yo-yo flowers, so I picked a bright green thread. I lined up where I wanted my yo-yos to be on the canvas paper, and then used my sewing machine to make a straight stitch for each flower.

I looove all the various stitches to choose from on sewing machines. Out of my 25 different stitches, one really reminded me of grass – and inspired the card. I changed the stitch setting and used the “grass” stitch to go straight across the bottom of the canvas paper. You don’t have to have this same stitch on your machine; I think even a zigzag stitch would look cute for grass.

My green canvas paper looked like this once I finished stitching:

Next, attach the yo-yos – I hand-stitched each one in place a few times and then used brads for the centers. I added a little paper border at the top, with a handwritten “hello” tag. I used double-sided sticky tape to attach my green paper to the front of the card – and voila! A sewing machine note card!

Sewing machines work great on cards or scrapbook pages as borders, accents or even part of the design like my yo-yo card. With so many fun fabrics and thread colors out there, any paper project can be spiced up with a little stitching! Try it the next time you work on a note card – you’ll be surprised how seamlessly [ha!] the two craft worlds combine.

Lyndsey Wells is the paper fiend behind the stationery place, showcasing a daily dose of beautiful stationery, DIY paper crafts and inspirational designers — but in real life, her day job is doing marketing for a scrapbook company. Lyndsey just moved from sunny Los Angeles to gorgeous Utah, and is still trying to adjust to the new lifestyle while her husband attends business school. She loves dessert, all things social media [follow her on twitter here] and curling up with a good book or movie.

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How-To Video: Hand-Stitched Cards

Marie — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:31:19 +0000

These hand-stitched cards are simple and fun to make. I’ve been stitching them for quite a few years now and have shared many patterns in my Card Patterns category. Today I’ve taken a video of me stitching a Gift Box Greeting Card for you to see just how easy it is. You can follow right along.

Supplies: Everything is available at your local craft or fabric store.

Punching Awl
Pattern for Gift Box to punch – Download this pattern, then print it out: Gift Box Stitched Card Pattern
Cork board: For punching holes in card – found at kitchen or office store (try a cork hot plate)
Thread: I usually use DMC floss, with all six strands
Needle: Cross-stitch needle #26 for 18-22 count fabric
Cardstock: white piece, accent color piece, folded card piece
Envelope: white envelope that measures, 4 ½ “ x 5 ¾ “
Glue: Glue stick, glue dots, spray glue is recommended

Instructions: For complete instructions on Punching, Stitching, and Gluing this card, please visit my Basic Instructions Post.

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Create a Fancy Flower Card

Marie — Mon, 04 May 2009 10:00:59 +0000

I love the beautiful ‘flower girls’ from Elsa Mora, first seen at The Crafty Crow. Ever since I saw them, I couldn’t wait to make one of my own. So we’ve crafted a few of these fancy flower girls onto cards for Mother’s day, inspired by Elsa Mora.

Supplies for Fancy Flower Cards:

flowers – I didn’t have many flowers on hand, so we used other things collected from the yard: blossoms, grass, clover, even the weeds!
cardstock – for the folded card
glue – white glue or a glue stick should do, or you can use a spray adhesive too.

Since these flower people are 3D and I didn’t want them wilting or getting smooshed, we pressed them all first before we got started. (For details on pressing flowers, see my Pressing Leaves post.) Or you can make your flower card with fresh flowers and then press it after, once the glue has dried on the cards. Then they can be easily displayed and saved.

Then design your flowers into people or animals with the supplies you have. Simply lay out your design, then glue it in place. As my flowers were already pressed, the glue stick worked great to hold them in place. But if you’re using fresh flowers, I’d use white craft glue.

It’s amazing to look at an object and see what other form it could be. My son chose to make an animal instead, here’s his frog on a surfboard. My mother-in-law loves frogs, so this one below is for her.

We had a great time creating these cards and can’t wait to give them to our Grandmas for Mother’s Day! (Here’s a fun Tissue Paper Flower Card that would be fun to craft for Mom too!)

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Easter Egg Stitched Greeting Card

Marie — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:57:40 +0000

As Easter is on it’s way, stitch this sweet card to cheer on the Easter Bunny as he hides his eggs! This pattern is fun to stitch and easy to make. It would be great to display in your home or give as an Easter gift to a loved one.

Supplies: Everything is available at your local craft or fabric store.

Punching Awl
Pattern for Easter Egg to punch: Download this pattern, then print it out
Easter Egg Stitched Card Pattern
Cork board: For punching holes in card – found at kitchen or office store (try a cork hot plate)
Thread: I usually use DMC floss, with all six strands
Needle: Cross-stitch needle #26 for 18-22 count fabric
Cardstock: white piece (or oat piece for this card), accent color piece, folded card piece
Envelope: white envelope that measures, 4 ½ “ x 5 ¾ “
Glue: Glue stick, glue dots, spray glue is recommended

Instructions: For complete instructions on Punching, Stitching, and Gluing this card, please visit my Basic Instructions Post.

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Sending Your Valentine a Card

Marie — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:12:18 +0000

Here’s a few fun Valentine Cards I’ve made in the past for my sweetheart. These would be great to give to your loved ones too, both young and old.

Heart Hand-Stitched Card

Puzzling Valentine Card

Pop-up Heart Card

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Snowman Stitched Greeting Card

Marie — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:10:42 +0000

I’m contributing over at Alpha Mom again today. Come on over to Alpha Mom’s – Once Upon a Holiday to see how I made these fun Snowman Stitched Cards. He’ll keep things frosty this Winter!

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Santa Hat Stitched Card

Marie — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:00:03 +0000

Ho Ho Ho! Santa’s Sleigh is almost on it’s way. Here’s a fun Santa Hat holiday card to hand-stitch for your Season’s Greetings. Or check out the last year’s stitched card of the Christmas Tree. Either would be perfect to create for your family and friends.

Supplies: Everything is available at your local craft or fabric store.

Punching Awl
Pattern for Santa Hat to punch – Download this pattern, then print it out: santa-hat-stitched-pattern
Cork board: For punching holes in card – found at kitchen or office store (try a cork hot plate)
Thread: I usually use DMC floss, with all six strands
Needle: Cross-stitch needle #26 for 18-22 count fabric
Cardstock: white piece, accent color piece, folded card piece
Envelope: white envelope that measures, 4 ½ “ x 5 ¾ “
Glue: Glue stick, glue dots, spray glue is recommended

Instructions: For complete instructions on Punching, Stitching, and Gluing this card, please visit my Basic Instructions Post.

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Pumpkin Stitched Card Pattern

Marie — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:14:10 +0000

This cheery pumpkin is a fun card for Fall time. Whether you’re having a party and need invitations or wanting to decorate your home with something homemade, stitch up this cute Pumpkin Greeting Card.

Supplies: Everything is available at your local craft or fabric store.

Punching Awl
Pattern for Pumpkin to punch: Download this pattern, then print it out: Pumpkin Stitched Pattern
Cork board: For punching holes in card – found at kitchen or office store (try a cork hot plate)
Thread: I usually use DMC floss, with all six strands
Needle: Cross-stitch needle #26 for 18-22 count fabric
Cardstock: white piece, accent color piece, folded card piece
Envelope: white envelope that measures, 4 ½ “ x 5 ¾ “
Glue: Glue stick, glue dots, spray glue is recommended

Instructions: For complete instructions on Punching, Stitching, and Gluing this card, please visit my Basic Instructions Post.

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