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homemade greetings

Is someone special's birthday impending? Do you need a canvas for a juicy love letter? Sending cards to friends and loved ones is an incredibly warmhearted expression that in the digital age, continues to dwindle. You know the feeling of when you open the mailbox, and amid monotonous bills and junk mail, you find a sparkling letter with scrawled handwriting with your name on it.

Its about the human connection of writing from the hand that loves the other, and taking the time to do so. The whole process of writing letters also provides an introspective, contemplative experience for the writer, who is forced to collect their thoughts and consider the person receiving the card. In essence, sending a card is an emotional experience on both ends.

Instead of buying pre-made greeting cards, there's a more meaningful and uniquely artistic way to do so. That's right, Do It Yourself. Making the card itself adds a deep layer of meaning to a letter, and can be an easy, fun project to experiment with. But in addition to just folding a piece of paper and adding some sweet thoughts, there are endless ways to rethink the format of the humble greeting card. And we all love when we can use recycled items to create beautiful things, right? So welcome in old newspapers, recycled paper, and small scraps of fabric to make these upcycled greeting cards.

It can be as simple as pasting an old photograph found at a thrift store on a thick brown folded piece of paper, and can become a unique work of art while corresponding to a loved one. And most likely, they will be much less expensive than the tacky ones sold at the store. So many benefits to making DIY cards! I've outlined some of the basic supplies for some of the types of cards I make, as well as a list of additions that can be fun to experiment with.

Basic card making supplies:

- Blank paper. This can be as simple as a blank piece of paper, preferably thick, from which you can fold or not fold depending on your liking. Paper can get pretty exciting. You can find paper embedded with plantable seeds, which is great for those green-thumbed friends and sustainably-minded folk. You can make your own paper too, to reach the pinnacle of DIY. But regular blank paper, colored or not, works great too! I like the earthy brown kraft paper, which can be made of recycled paper. Stores like Paper Source have huge varieties of these papers and come with matching envelopes to make it easy.

- Envelopes. You can make your own envelopes with this easy template (seen at right) with any paper lying around. Or you can find matching envelopes to the paper found above, whether it be embedded with wildflower seeds or not.

- Glue or Modge Podge. From my experience, using Modge Podge with a paintbrush creates the cleanest, and most professional look, but liquid glue or a glue stick can work as well. Mixing glue with enough water to make it paintable is a good substitute for Modge Podge.

- Paintbrush. For gluing on scraps of paper and clippings, if using.

- Pens, pencils, writing utensils. For hand-drawn effects and of course, for writing your letter! Paints are also welcome!

Some fun card making materials:

- stamps
- feathers
- pressed flowers or leaves

- old photographs. You can find some good ones at thrift stores or deep in your family's photo drawers
- maps. These make a great border for old photographs.
- newspaper
- magazine clippings
- glitter. you can paint this on with glue to jazz it up.
- fabric. Canvas makes a nice, textured effect, but any thin fabric can work well as a background.
- other types of paper. Mixing and matching scraps of colorful paper can add simple shapes to your cards.

Most of these cards are quite simple to make, and their effect is enormous compared to store-bought cards. Sometimes simplicity is best for such a small canvas. I hope these examples give you some inspiration for homemade greeting cards to send or even sell. Happy crafty!