Handmade Card Making Techniques Explained

When it comes to crafts such as scrapbooking and handmade greeting cards, there are a variety of different techniques that you can use. Each technique is designed to add a little bit of uniqueness to your craft. Let’s take a look at three of the most common greeting card techniques and explain what they are, as well as how to do them.

1) Embossing

Embossing is the process of creating an impression on your greeting card. It generally adds a bit of texture and when touched, you can feel that the area has been raised. In the process of embossing, stencils and stamps are used to raise sections of cardstock. 

To emboss your image using a stamp, stamp your image onto a piece of paper using pigment ink or embossing ink. Then cover it with embossing powder immediately. After a few seconds, carefully tip all of the excess powder on to another sheet of paper. There should still be a great deal of powder that is stuck to your wet image. Pour all of your extra powder back into its container and remove any excess grains on your image using a small paintbrush.

Next, you will need to heat the image. It is generally recommended that you do this with the precision heating tool, but if that is not available hold your card over a hot toaster (face up) until the pattern melts and the image rises. Wait for your image to dry and voila! You are finished!

2) Distressing

Distressing is the technique through which you can give images or cards a classic, aged look. It is one of the simplest, most unique looking of all techniques. All you need to distress an image is some distressing ink and a piece of cotton. Place the image you want to distress on top of a blank sheet of paper. Then dab down a piece of cotton in your distressed ink and gently dab around the edges of your image or card. This will make it look aged. To add extra effect, crumple up your paper and add small dabs of ink here and there.

3) Eyelets

If you don’t know what an eyelet is, think of a pair of shoes. An eyelet is the part of the shoe that you thread the shoelace through. Now you may be thinking, how on earth did those get into the world of card making? Eyelets are commonly used to attach tags to cards for the simple reason that ribbons and lace can easily be thread through them. Using eyelets is simple but you will need an eyelet setter.

To add an eyelet to your card, insert a small hole where you would like it to be placed (matching the size of the eyelet). Insert the eyelet and turn the card over. Using your eyelet setter, find a tip that matches the size. Enter this into the hole and apply a firm pressure to set it into place.

So there you have it. These are a few of the most basic and popular card making techniques. Begin with these techniques and then move on to some of the many others out there as you become more advanced.

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