Quick Card for the Artistically Impaired

Here is a quick card I put together today more as an experiment than anything else. I will be the first to admit I have little to no artistic ability. However, that doesn't prevent me from enjoying making cards. They may not be the most elaborate or beautiful cards, but they are mine.

Anyway, I wanted to give you a quick overview of how I made this so you can see how simple it is. The dragon is from a store-bought card I already had. I wanted to match the colors in the picture, so I used brown and a deep yellow card stock. For the inside I used a cream text weight paper.

I usually work with 8.5 x 11 paper and cut it in half width-wise to give me two 5.5 x 8.5 pieces. When folded this gives you two 4.25 x 5.5 cards. Pretty standard note card size and easy to find envelopes for if you don't want to make your own.

Once I trimmed my card to the size I wanted (3.5 x 4.5 I think) I cut the brown card stock so that it would create about an 1/8 inch border around the card. I ran both the card front and the brown card stock through my Xyron 510 (you could also use glue stick or other adhesive). I stuck the card to the brown card stock but left the wax paper backing on the card stock. I recently got a Cuttlebug and used one of my dies to cut a decorative square. I removed the cutout pieces and then cut the square into 4 equal pieces to form the corners. If you don't have anything like that, you could use photo corners, paper triangles, or use nothing at all.

Peeling away a bit of the Xyron wax paper, I positioned my corner pieces at each corner and pressed to join to the card stock. Once all four corners were done I flipped the stack over and applied an adhesive to the exposed undersides of the corners. I then removed the wax paper and attached the stack to the card. A tiny drop of super glue to the end of a toothpick helped me secure the corner pieces to the front of the dragon image. I then got some golden mica powder and lightly rubbed it along the edges of the dragon image and brown card stock border. Gives the whole thing a slight glimmer that isn't too obvious yet adds an extra dimension to the card. My photo doesn't show this well, but when you do your card, you will see what I mean.

Now, go get your card or photo and paper together and make a card for a family member who would enjoy the time you spent making them a little something special.