In many ways postcards have become forgotten by people, as all congratulations on any holiday began to be sent through the Internet and social networks. But, nevertheless, postcards remain a symbolic greeting for a person and stay in his memory for a long time.

So today in this article will be told about a master class for beginners on how to make handmade birthday cards from paper and cardboard with your own hands. You can also see photos of cards as an example.

The Art of Cardmaking

Kardmaking is called the creation of postcards by your own hands, the basis of which is the work with everyday materials that are at hand and using special techniques.

To create a masterpiece in the modern world there are all the necessary tools and decorations, sold in any specialized stores, with which it is possible to make original and beautiful postcards.

Materials to use

For beginners it is better to use a material of which you have some idea and use the usual standard blanks. Used materials and tools:

• Paper (regular or colored);
• Fabric;
• A variety of ribbons;
• Glue;
• Brushes;
• Paints;
• Various decorations.

In the process of increasing personal skill and understanding of how to make a postcard with your own hands, you can increase the set of tools and materials used in the work. Instead of cardboard or plain paper you can use special paper for scrapbooking and quilling.

In addition to standard decor you can turn to various 3D stickers and chipboards. To all the rest you can use gel or watercolor pencils, as well as stencils and stamps, and to give a special form to the postcard apply special scissors for shape cutting.

Some of the tools you can make yourself, such as stamps. To make it you need a potato, a knife and a cookie mold. The potato tuber is cut in half and the form is pressed into the resulting half, and the excess potato is removed.

The finished stamp is then dipped in paint and then pressed to the surface. But such a stamp has one major disadvantage – it is short-lived.

As a stamp, you can also use the core of a Beijing cabbage. For this purpose, it is necessary to cut the leaves, and the part closer to the root, to use as that very stamp, having previously dipped the core in paint. The resulting image will look like a bud of a blooming rose.

The nuances of design

In the process of creating postcards from paper with their own hands beginners should not engage in complex works, and it is better to do easy postcards from the simplest elements and materials, well, the imagination in this case will be as – by all means helpful. For it is this, as well as desire and perseverance will help make an original product.

Postcard design depends on your imagination and who will be presented postcard, its age and gender. For example, a card for mom should be decorated with flowers, bows and beads in bright colors.

For men, however, you should use a restrained palette with strict decorations, an example would be a postcard with a picture of a car or money bills.

To make a postcard, you need to cut out the base of the required size, then it is bent in half, and the place of bending is ironed over so that the cardboard postcard did not lose its shape.

The inner surface is made lighter, as everything written on it will look more expressive. On the outside, you can draw something with pencils and paints, or make some kind of application.

Applied Techniques

The most popular and easy to learn are three types of cardmaking techniques: scrapbooking, quilling and iris folding.

Scrapbooking

The meaning of this technique is the gluing of figures on a blank, cut out of paper or fabric. This technique can decorate existing postcards or make a completely new one. Therefore, you will need:

• Three cardboard sheets (1 white and 2 colored);
• Three flowers of paper or fabric;
• Lace;
• Ribbons;
• Buttons.

Of the white cardboard cut a rectangular shape 16 to 20 cm and bent in half.

Colored cardboard is cut to the size of the previously made drawings, and then both sheets are glued together so that the smallest rectangle was located as if in a frame, which will later be glued lace and a bow made from ribbon.

Various decorations, such as buttons and flowers, are glued to the small rectangle. It remains only to glue this cover to the base of the card and paint with a pen.

Quilling

Quilling consists of forming curls of different shapes and sizes from strips of paper, from which various compositions are created.

This technique requires a person’s concentration and accuracy. The manufacturing process consists of folding paper strips and giving them a shape by pressing them with your finger.

For work using both colored and plain paper, as well as toothpick and glue. The toothpick acts as the axis, around which the paper strip is wound.

The ready spiral must be removed from the base, and the free end to glue, after which, fingers blank is given the desired form.

The technique of “quilting” is easy to learn, and therefore children love it and do it with great pleasure. All this does not require a large outlay of money, just buy everything you need.

Iris folding

This technique consists in placing strips of paper and ribbons in a certain way, after which interesting twisted images are obtained. The technology of making such images is quite labor-intensive, which will require the creation of pre-made sketches, as well as attentiveness and diligence.

To create such an interesting postcard using this technique, it is necessary to take cardboard of the right color – this will be the base of the postcard, on which the scheme will be depicted.

A figure is cut out on the blank using a template. Then the piece is placed face down, and in the resulting space is inserted a template with a pre-prepared scheme. All decorative elements are distributed according to the scheme in a clockwise direction and pasted with scotch tape.

After all the decorations are glued, the template is removed, and the workpiece is attached to the base. The front side of the card can also be decorated with other kinds of decorations or just colored with pencils.

Postcards with volume effect

Volumetric greeting cards are one of the most original souvenirs. This composition’s allure is revealed only after a postcard is opened.

Such a card is made in the following way. The title side is decorated in any shape, and the inner side is going to be assembled from the previously prepared elements glued in a special sequence.

For work will be needed: a ruler, glue, a pencil, a knife and cardboard.

Of the 2 sheets of cardboard, folded in half, is the so-called basis, pasting one sheet into another, and on the inner sheet made incisions of varying depth.

The resulting strips should bend inward and the same strips will serve as a platform for fixing the insert with a decor. The same front side is decorated with absolutely any method and technique you liked.

Three-dimensional bouquet

Such a bouquet will be a great idea for a birthday card with their own hands.

Making such a bouquet consists of the need to cut out of sheets of paper 7 squares of equal size, which later will become flowers, then these squares are folded into a triangle.

Fold as many times as necessary necessary petals in the bud. Then the base of the triangle is cut in a semi-circle of the required radius.

Next, we make the petals and stems, and all this, including the finished buds, glued to the postcard so that when you open the latter there is a three-dimensional figure.

Balloons

Such a card will be a good addition to a gift for a child or an adult. To do this, you just need to make it three-dimensional, and then it will be very beautiful and pleasing to the eye.

To do this, you need to cut out balls of different sizes and colors from cardboard, and then to each ball glued strings.

Then the flags are made. Paper is cut out of small squares that are folded in half to double form and of this form have cut out the flags themselves, which same should turn out double. We glue the flags on a thread so that a garland was created, pre-written on them greeting.

Then a three-dimensional composition is made of a part of balloons, for which each of the elements is glued to a paper spring, which in turn is glued to the base.

And the other part is just glued to the same base, but without any springs. It only remains to glue the prepared flags, that’s all, the card is ready.

Children’s cards

Children of kindergarten age need to offer something – something elementary to make, so the handmade card in kindergarten should be easier than the above cards.

It’s enough to cut out of cardboard a base in the form of a square folded in half, on the inner surface of which you can glue different figures or pictures cut out with the help of teachers.

Younger school-age children can think of something – something more complicated and work with parents to make original handmade cards for school on September 1.

An example would be a greeting card with bells, made using the “quilling” technique. For this cardboard base should be folded in half and glued to the outer surface sketches of bells.

After that, a strip of paper is glued to the contour of the bell, and then the rest of the part is decorated with different ribbons and flowers.