How I make personalised greeting cards

One of my favourite hobbies is making personalised greeting cards for friends and family – birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, congratulations, etc. There is a card for every occasion! I also try to make the process as sustainable as possible. Of course the most sustainable option would be to avoid giving cards but where is the fun in that? I love making them and the people in my life love receiving them.

I thought I would take you through my process of making a unique personal card for a loved one – the steps and any sustainable considerations along the way!

Example one: Party Dog

This is a card I made for my boyfriend’s aunt whose birthday was coming up.

Step 1

I began by gathering a few bits that I thought she might like, from old cards that I keep for this purpose. She has a dog so I found a couple of dog cards, and I thought she would like the flowers too. I decided on the dog wearing the party hat as it actually looks a lot like her own dog!

Step 2

Time for a background! I didn’t want anything too busy as I knew the dog image would be the focal point of the card. I found this silver card that matched the hat on the dog perfectly. I stuck this onto the card using glue and cut down to size.

Step 3

I wanted the dog to really stand out so I decided to cut the image out and then stick it onto a white background, leaving a small border around the dog.

Step 4

I stuck some glue dots onto the back of the dog image to make it 3d and stuck it in the middle of the card.

I could have continued adding to this card but I am a believer in ‘less is more’ so I decided to leave it there!

Example two: Granny the Gardener

Step 1

Again, I looked through my materials to find something that I thought would suit the receiver of this card – my lovely Granny who happens to be passionate about gardening. I knew this card would be the basis of her card.

Step 2

I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do with this but I liked the images so I cut around them all to decide where to go from there.

Step 3

I found my background – a dark green, similar to the background of the images but different enough to allow them to stand out.

Step 4

I then decided I wanted to write out a message on the card using these letter stickers. I found some ribbon that closely matched the colour of the stickers.

Step 5

I stuck the card onto the green background and cut round it. As you can see from the image, this background was from an old card as well.

Step 6

I stuck two ribbons onto the front, framing the card and adding a nice extra detail. The way I did this was tape the ends of the ribbon onto the back of the front cover. In hindsight, it would have looked a lot neater to stick the ribbon onto the green card before sticking the green onto the card itself, this way the excess ribbon would have been hidden. I tend to make these cards up as I go along which can have disadvantages such as this messy back.

Step 7

The last step was assembling my chosen images, and sticking on stickers saying ‘granny’.

Sustainable card making tips:

As I mentioned earlier, I try to make this process as sustainable as possible, by upcyclying and using second hand materials.

I keep lots of ‘scraps’, including cards that I have received, old magazines and sometimes even junk mail that comes in the post. You would be amazed the amount of items I have saved from going directly in the bin.

Everyone in my life knows I enjoy crafting so I often receive second hand materials that they no longer want. I also keep my eye out in charity shops or on second hand websites such as Facebook marketplace or Freecycle for more materials.

I also have a lot of materials from my childhood that I have held onto over the years and I am still getting through!

I would love to hear from you if you enjoy card making.

Do you have a similar process for making personalised cards?

Have you got any tips for keeping the process more sustainable and eco friendly?