Birthday cards are a long-standing tradition in the western world. They serve as a way to show our love and appreciation for friends, family, and lovers.
Most of the time, people simply buy a birthday card in a store and write a little message on the inside. While this is still a nice gesture, it lacks the personalization and effort that a custom card offers. Even if you go to a dedicated card store with a massive range, chances are you won’t get precisely what you are looking for.
Covered below are the following aspects of making a custom birthday card, and why you should do that over buying one:
- Why a handmade card?
- Handmade or custom card service?
- What kind of paper?
- Computer-designed or hand-drawn?
- Ideas to spark creativity
Why A Handmade Card?
As is mentioned above, birthday cards are a great way to show respect, love, and appreciation for the people in our lives. While store-bought cards can do this perfectly fine, the extra special touch added by a homemade card pushes the sentiment to new heights.
Whether you’re an adult making a card for your significant other, or a kid without money making a card for your mom, a handmade card is one of the most personal gifts you can give somebody. So if that sounds right for you, then read on!
Handmade Or Custom Card Service?
It depends on the occasion and what you are looking for. There are plenty of online sites that offer custom birthday cards for affordable prices, and while you can design them to your heart’s content, they tend to lack the rustic craftiness of a truly handmade piece.
The cards are still manufactured by machine, so going with a custom card service guarantees you that store quality, with your choice of customization. If that’s what you’re looking for, then go with this option.
However, if what you’re looking for is a personal, intimate card to give somebody, then go with an old-fashioned handmade card. Whereas with a service you have set options you can choose from, a homemade card is limited only by your imagination.
You can use whatever material, whatever color, whatever theme, and design that you want, and that’s only the beginning. You can tell when some serious effort has been put into a homemade card, and the difference between a purchased custom card and a handmade one is noticeable.
What Kind of Material?
This depends on your budget. If you’re a kid with nothing to really spend, you can use some plain paper that you can find lying around the house, or if you have it, thicker craft paper.
If you do have some funds to spend, some thick art card is your best bet. 130 gsm to 300 gsm is the ideal range, but you can go up as far as 600 gsm if you really want. Just make sure that you can still bend the card without it getting damaged!
Of course, you don’t have to go with this material. So long as what you’re using works with your design, you can use whatever you want. Want to do a tapestry style birthday card with some fabric and stitching? Go for it!
Computer Designed Or Hand Drawn?
This is a similar case to the custom service or handmade argument, although there are differences. If you are proficient in computer programs like photoshop and illustrator, your choices are significantly greater than the ones you get by buying a customized card but still less than a handmade one.
Although, if you know what you’re doing, you can create some elaborate and beautiful cards using a variety of computer tools. That being said, they still lack the charming feel of a genuine handmade card, so if you are trying to create something as personal as possible, you should again go with a handmade piece.
The skill aspect works both ways, though. If you have absolutely no artistic talent, you may be fighting an uphill battle doing things by hand. To combat this, you can forgo drawing and choose to, instead, go for designs to decorate the card.
There are tricks you can do with paper and craft that look stunning and are easy to replicate that can help you push your card to the heights it needs to be. Although, the whole point of a handmade card is that it comes from the heart, so don’t be fretting if you struggle artistically, just try your best.
Ideas To Spark Creativity
There are a million and one different ways you can cut paper and card to create elaborate designs, and just as many YouTube tutorials on how to do them. So if you need help artistically, that is where you should look.
If you are going with a traditional design for a card, make sure that you fold it over evenly before you start working on it; otherwise, you’ll end up with an uneven and mismatched design.
Depending on who the card is for, you can do some truly unique customization. For a lover, you could buy some small led lights and do a light-up heart, or you could do a pop-out card that opens up into a heart or cake when you open it up.
You can go a different route and make a card out of a photo collage by cutting and sticking a bunch of photos together in the right shape. You could even make a flag birthday card out of some fabrics, perfect for a child who likes pirates!
You could even age some paper with a dried-out tea bag and turn the card into a treasure map that they have to follow to find some treasure (their present).
The sky truly is the limit when it comes to homemade birthday cards. They are so much better than store-bought cards and offer a level of personalization that you just can’t get anywhere else.
If you know the person you are making the card for, whether it be your child, mother, or friend, you can design some truly great and memorable pieces that can transcend just a simple birthday card (like turning it into a game!)