Sunday, April 06, 2008

The Ransom Note Birthday Card

In an effort to save some money, I'm trying to make my own greeting cards. I'm getting tired of spending $3 or $4 per card, especially when I may need several cards for one holiday. I don't have much experience with paper handling, although Eugene and I did make some things, such as our programs and rehearsal dinner invitations, for our wedding. I still wish we could have used some of the cool invitations from Paper Source, but that would have been too much and too stressful givn the size of our wedding. But we are going to make the inviations for Alex's first birthday party, and I'm also planning to make birthday cards for some of my friends. I already ordered some of the supplies I need from Paper Source.

Yesterday, while I was at Target, I checked out their craft section, as they have some cardmaking supplies. I saw they had letter stamps and inkpads, so I thought those might come in handy. Since one of my co-workers has a birthday tomorrow, I decided to try making a birthday card for her. I wanted to put "Happy Birthday, Name" on the front of the card and "From All of Us" on the inside, using silver ink from an inkpad. I've never used stamps and inkpads before, so I wound up overinking the stamps, and the extra ink wound up on the card. Even though I used a ruler, the letters wound up unevenly spaced and not lined up properly. Eugene joked that it looks more like a ransom note than a birthday card. I'm still going to give it to my co-worker, but I'm a little embarrassed about passing it around for my other co-workers to sign. We'll see if I go ahead and do it anyway. I just hope Alex's invites turn out better!

1 comment:

Maria Zannini said...

I think the ransom card look might be cute. Just tell them you did it on purpose. (grin)

I've never used stamps, but I have done woodblock printing and you have to test it a few times to get the ink consistency right and a feel for the block. Every block (and stamp) is different.

You could try wiping the edges of the stamp before you press down to see if you can get a cleaner edge. If it's the consistency of the ink, it might be too wet.

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