Re-using made Cards, and Lettering

One very obvious source of craft materials and ideas is the greetings cards that you receive. Some might have a design that you might want to imitate or adapt, or there may be images and elements that could be cut out and re-used. This can be a boon for those of you, like me, who are somewhat challenged when it comes to lettering. A good fountain pen and a little practice at calligraphy can go a long way - you can find examples at http://www.learncalligraphy.co.uk/ . However, cutting the messages off received cards before recycling them is a great way to get professional lettering. Keep them in a bag together so that when you need one, you can pick something suitable.

I've put a few examples of re-made cards here for you to see - a couple using the angel stencil from the fabulous www.spraypaintstencils.com, and various others using card components. This is not just cutting the front image from a card and sticking it on a card blank - that usually looks awful anyway. Think in terms of elements and materials - bits of coloured card, gold or silver borders, messages, or a special image.
Many of the stars/Christmas trees you can see on my cards came from other cards. Of course I keep special cards.

Ooh, another way to use images - if you are lucky enough to get a whole A4 sheet of paper that is plain on one side, then print greetings messages on it (hopefully a friend will help with the printing if you don't have a printer). For the snowflake card I used the phrase 'snowmen fall from the sky unassembled'. I can't remember where I first heard this, but I quite liked it. You can check the internet for other sayings if a suitable one doesn't come to mind. I tore carefully round it, and used silver eyeshadow to mark the edging. For the pink/lavender card, I used the central image from a card which had very gaudy shocking pink card as a base. I thought it would look good on something a little more subdued, set off with a few gold Christmas trees from another card.

The 'present' card in red and gold is entirely scrap. Virginmedia, that cracker box, drinks ribbon, a greeting from another card, stars from another card. The right border is on the inside of the card - the outside cut to show it. It's an easy way to add interest. The one next to it is the odd mixture of deep rose and lilac - not particularly Christmassy but somehow it works. I like this simple card; a reminder that you don't need loads of bits on a card to make it look good.


The white, silver and gold card is an odd mixture of bits and pieces of leftovers. If things are colour co-ordinated, then having different materials and textures can look unexpectedly interesting. Experiment! Put different selections of things on a piece of card and see how it looks before gluing it down. Arg, you can see the glue on that one a bit. Never mind. It's vegan glue and that's what matters!

Feel free to use any of the designs that I've used. And for one final project, I received a card from some friends a few years ago, which had individual sachets of salt and pepper on the front. The message? 'Condiments of the Season'. If you have a good idea, use it!
Best wishes,
Jehanine x
P.S. Do you like the pics? My spanky new scanner is an improvement on my old blurry photos! here's of a pic of it being used for its main purpose, including whisker-touch controls and integrated tail-rest.