Simple Card Recipes

Several times throughout this year I would get an e-mail from my mother-in-law letting me know that someone was ill, or had passed away. I would get a card together and ask for a mailing address, and she would say, "your further ahead than me, I haven't even had time to go to the store for a card yet."
So this Christmas, I am giving her what I call "the gift of time". A bundle of 40+ alol occassion cards. When she needs a card - she can go right into my variety pack, pick one out and pop it in the mail. No need to go to the store. I suspect it is a gift she will very much appreciate.

Today I want to share several of the birthday cards I made. Keep in mind, these are not fancy, magazine-publishable cards. I want to stress how easy it is to make a simple card that looks pretty nice, with very few supplies and on a budget. I bought a 50 pack of pre-cut and scored cards and envelopes at Michaels for half off - what a time saver! Scraps of patterned paper, a few border punches, ink primarily for distressing (I used brown only)- were all I used to create most of the cards. I spent one day just piecing all the cards together. Mind you, I used scraps - and time separating the scraps into coordinating color lots took some time. My initial sitting at working on these was done away from home, and my supply was therefore limited.

I spent another night in front of the television at home with a few greeting card stamps. I have a favorite sentiment set by Inkadinkadoo that includes many occassions, and a very useful "With Deepest Sympathy" wooden stamp by Rubber Stampede. My MIL volunteers much at her church during retirement, and it seems she has great need for get well wishes and sympathy cards.

One Saturday morning was spent putting the final details on those that needed it, such as the first card in this post. My MIL enjoys birds, so I used a number of my acrylic bird stamps on a variety of cards, and most often used Staz-On Timber Brown for my images.

Masculine Birthday




















Girl
Little girls and teenage girls, I made several for a variety of ages, although there are only two grand daughters, even I would enjoy a bright, cheerful card made with the paper shown in this card.


Boy
There are quite a few grandsons, and therefore a number of birthday cards suitable for them were made.

Should I tell her the one with stamped ants is one our son would love? (LOL)








A very few - with cutouts. If I had big spaces that needed something, I either stamped an image directly onto the paper, or in a few cases stamped and cut out a bird or this large butterfly. I will show examples of other occassion simple card recipes in future posts.
Border punches have really made a difference in my card making. I seldom use ribbon any longer, and instead dress up a card with a punched border. When matting photographs on black or brown cardstock, I always have strips leftover that are perfect for punching borders.

Happy creating!