My 1 year old recently received a birthday card and gift card for the Early Learning Centre from a friend, as well as a gorgeous cuddly blanket. She loves fluffy things and I really wanted to send a thank you card as it was such a thoughtful gift. I knew I wanted something simple but eye catching, so in the end I decided on a big bunch of colourful hearts on white card, which worked out wonderfully.
Don't worry if you don't have a cutting mat and knife - in hindsight I would have chosen to use a pair of scissors to cut out the hearts. The great thing about simple designs like these is that so much can be changed - you could have a bunch of stars instead of hearts, or use any colour paper you would like!
My pencil lines have come up pretty faint in this picture sadly but the first step is to simply flip the card over and draw/trace hearts onto the left hand side of the card. Make sure to keep these towards the top half of the card so you have enough room for the ribbon and text later on. This is so you don't have pencil lines all over the front and this side will be covered up. My foam hearts are by Craftworks and cost me £1 from The Works in England.
This is the trickiest step, so clear away animals, children and the occasional spouse. Cut around the hearts you have drawn if you're using a knife for the job, or simply stab the middle of the heart with a sharp pair of scissors before cutting the shapes out.
Take your selected paper and cut it so it's just a little smaller than the card (when the card is folded). Stick it down to side you used to draw heart shapes with double sided sticky tape - but make sure it looks right first!
Use a ruler to work out the best place for your ribbon lines to end and draw a small dot, making sure there is enough space for the ribbon ends and text. This will help with the next step!
Using a ruler and black pen, draw lines from the hearts to the dot, but make sure you pick your ruler up carefully if you're using a wet ink - after all this work ink streaks are the last thing you want to see. Add some more straight lines going from the dot for the ends and simply make the dot bigger and turn it into a bow!
Finally, add a 'Thank You' at the bottom. I traced mine using the font Bellwethers, a technique I'll talk about in a later post. If you're uncomfortable with handwriting text you could just use a 'Thank You' sticker or look online for one you would like and print it out.
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This is the first tutorial I have ever done for a handmade card, so if you have read this please feel free to leave a comment below if you enjoyed it, have some tips or even think of something I should add to this post to make it even better!
