Making Cards Using Vintage Art

Recycle vintage art to make unique greeting cards.

All things vintage are in fashion. Vintage items can be quite costly due to their increased popularity, so save money and recycle by creating your own vintage greeting cards. Use vintage art from magazines, newspapers, old photographs or postcards. If you do not have vintage art to recycle, search the Internet for pictures you like and print them out. Just a little creativity can create unique greeting cards that have a personal touch. Getting a handmade greeting card is so much nicer than receiving a store-bought one.

Things You'll Need

• Poster board (letter size 8.5 inches-by-11 inches)
• Vintage art
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glue
• Marker
• Envelope

Instructions

1. Lay the poster board out on your work surface in a portrait orientation. This means that the short sides are facing towards you and away while the long sides are on your left and right.

2. Fold the bottom two corners up to the top. Align all four corners and run your finger along the fold to crease it.

3. Decide on the orientation of your greeting card. This depends largely on the size and shape of your vintage art. You can either have the fold on the left hand side with the open flap on the right, or you can have the fold on the top with the open flap on the bottom.

4. Place your card onto the vintage art. Center the card on the area you would like to cut out. Draw around the card with the pencil. Set the card aside.

5. Use the ruler to draw a rectangle inside the one you traced around the card. There should be a 1-inch border between the smaller rectangle and the one you traced around the card. Cut the small rectangle out.

6. Stick the vintage art you just cut out to the front of the greeting card. Open the card and on the opposite, inside facing side, write your greeting neatly with a marker. Sign your card and send it to the recipient.

Tips & Warnings

• Embellish your card with lace, ribbons, glitter, paint, markers, stamps, sequins, beads or feathers. You can stick these both inside or out.

• If you do not have neat handwriting, consider using a stencil for the inside greeting. You can also print a greeting, cut it out and stick it inside the card.

• You can use your computer to print a vintage picture and internal greeting instead of making the craft.

• If your picture is much smaller than the greeting card, simply center it on the front of your card before gluing.

• Supervise younger crafters who are using scissors.

Resources

• DLTK: Printable Cards