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It’s that time of year — holiday card-making time! There are so many festive holidays in November and December –> Diwali, Guru Nanak’s Gurpurab, the Jain New Year, Hanukkah, Christmas and many others. For that reason, I decided to create some holiday cards that aren’t just in your typical red and green colors. The good thing about these cards is they also double as gift card / money holders by including a flap on the inside of the card. Here’s how I did it!
To see a video tutorial, click here.
Supplies:
- printed cardstock, two different images
- solid-colored cardstock to match
- *printed holiday greetings in nice font (you can make these really easily on your computer)
- scissors and/or paper cutter
- glue
- foam squares
- matching ribbon
- hole punch
* A note about these greetings. The great thing about printing these at home is that you don’t need fancy paper and it’s super easy to customize the greeting based on the holiday you are celebrating. Add a “Happy Gurpurab” or “Happy Diwali” to your DIY cards. Change the font to something bold, fun, readable and hit print! That’s it! Since you are cutting the greeting and gluing it to cardstock, it doesn’t matter that it’s on regular ol’ printer paper.
For the card below, I cut my patterned paper to cover the front of my card almost completely. I left a thin cardstock border around the sides to really make the design pop. I also added a contrasting cardstock border to my Hanukkah greeting and used foam squares to adhere to the card for a 3D effect.
This card used the same technique but just with a different patterned paper.
For something different, I cut my paper in one long column and added my custom greeting centered on top:
The card below took a bit more time. I used a wrap around method for this card, whereby I took a really long piece of thin, patterned paper and wrapped it all the way around my card and folded it around the edge once more.
You’ll notice that all of these cards are tied with ribbon. There’s a practical reason for this. Since these cards all have gift card / cash holders, I wanted to ensure that they were a bit more secure. Instead of creating en envelope for each card, I decided to secure the card shut with hole punches and ribbon. It added a more festive element to the card, and let’s the front of your card be the star of the show…instead of getting covered up with a boring white envelope!
For the insides of my cards, I added a triangle or rectangle cash/gift card holder with scissors, glue and foam squares. It’s important to glue all sides of the pocket down (except for the top, of course!) For the top part of the pocket, I added foam squares to both right and left sides so there is a gap in the pocket for some cash or a gift card.
On the opposite side of the cash/gift card holder, I included a printed greeting to the card recipient. I also cut out individual design elements from the patterned paper and glued / foam squared them to the top of that side of the card. This is what the inside of one of the cards looks like after the design elements have been cut out and glued to the card.
The other patterned paper that I used had pictures of hanging ornaments on it. I cut out the individual elements and used mini foam squares to adhere them to the inside of the card. I then used my previously printed greeting and glued it to the bottom of the card. Check it out below:
This image also shows what a rectangular gift card / cash holder looks like:
…and that’s it! What did you think of my DIY Hanukkah cards / DIY Holiday cards??
Please let me know in the comments below how you like to decorate your DIY cards!
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