So you want to make your own greeting cards at home ? (A 'how to' for Card Making Tutorial) Part 1

If you are a scrapbooker or simply brand new at paper crafting, you'll probably find it daunting to start making your own cards at home. You certainly have friends who have attended rubber stamping parties or they have simply sent you beautiful cards and you thought: I could do that !

But where does one start ? As it seems you need so many supplies and honestly what's the point of spending a fortune in materials if your card making isn't up to scratch I hear you cry.

Just put your worries aside for now, it's not that expensive to start creating making your own professional looking greeting cards which will amaze your friends.

You need three things to make your own hand made greeting cards: Supplies, Me Time and Perseverance ! :)

Please avoid the temptation of thinking you need all the latest 'toys', I know I fell for it when I started and spent literally a fortune and guess what ? Yep, I haven't used those new tools much if at all and got the best compliments for my cards made with the simplest of tools ! Go and figure that one out ! :)

I've listed a few basics tools below that you can use to get you started.

To get started in making handmade greeting cards, you just need a few basics paper crafts supplies: I took the liberty to pick a list as an example on the right hand side. Although the following list is not exhaustive, it will give you a rough idea of what you need so you don't have to run to your local crafts scrapbook shop.

First thing first you will need:

• A cutting mat (also called self-healing mat)
• A pair of scissors
• A trimmer/cutter tool(s) and/or guillotine
• Glue ( a good variety as some elements need to different type of glues )
• Colorful Designed Papers (start with buying a few 12X12 sheets from your Local Scrapbook Store - LSS)
• A rule/ruler
• Craft knife (be careful as they are sharp so if you're not sure avoid this purchase for the time being
• Optionals > not strictly necessary for a beginner but can add a finishing touch to your cards as well as jump starting your paper crafts creativity: brads, ribbons, coloring mediums (watercolours pencils etc...), rubber stamps and ink pads...

The piece of cardstock paper folded in half which will be your receptacle for your papers layered on top and all the other embellishments is called 'Base Card'.

Cardstock paper is a thicker paper which can stand when folded on its own without toppling over. Paper is measured in weight (USA pounds per - Rest of the World GSM, grams per square meter). The thicker and smoother the cardstock the better quality your finished card will look.

To save time you can buy cardstock already folded in various shapes: rectangle, square and other fancy shapes too, they also usually come paired up with the matching envelope (so that will save you time if you're not into making your own envelopes, also called envies).

The reason you need a ruler is that when you use a sheet of cardstock paper, you'll need to cut it at certain interval to create either a square cards or a rectangle one. Don't panic it's not that hard as you can just either score your big sheet in the middle and once folded you have made your first base card. If you were to cut that big sheet into two and then score the two pieces you'll end up with two smaller based cards.

Scoring a piece of cardstock means that you use a blunt piece of metal against your ruler to create an indentation on your cardstock so that it makes it easier for folding it avoiding the ragged edges on the side of the card; in a nutshell it looks neater and professional.

You can score the cardstock using an old pen that doens't work anymore, the back of the scissors (careful) or a scoring tool/embossing tool (it looks like a pen but has a metal round tip which is perfect the leave the score line/groove which will weaken the paper fibres to allow you to fold the cardstock neatly.

Now comes the surprising bit which actually left me a bit confused when I started crafting. You fold on the mountain side and not the valley. Mountain side is the bump of your score line; Valley side is the score line/groove you left. So once you finished scoring your paper in the middle turn the paper over and fold it. I know it seems a bit odd to do that but trust me, you get a better edge on your base card that way. Even if you feel it goes against what your gut feeling is telling you ! :)

Now that we have a base card we can start adding embellishments, paper(s) and a sentiment. If you're a total beginner you need a helping hand for where to put your elements on the card: it's also called card elements positioning as known as sketches, pagemaps or outlines (I'll talk about how to use them on Part 2 of my card tutorial).

I personally like to add a background paper leaving a white edge (basically the base card showing around it) as it gives me a subtle frame around the card. You can also cover the whole of the card front with a patterned paper.

When adding different layers of papers in various sizes on your card, there's a technique called 'matting'. What it means is that in order to make your paper element(s) stand out you put a mat (another piece of contrasting paper) behind your element. It's similar to framing by professional photographer whereas the picture has either a white or black thin frame showing behind it, hence the word 'matting' almost like having a little mat to put your focal point over.

There's also a nice new trend to keep cardmaking as simple as possible. I do like a striking minimalistic look but make sure that your base card is very sturdy using excellent quality cardstock as less is more, good thick quality cardstock becomes paramount to a good looking card. This new 'simple' trend use the white space concept a lot: where positioning a few elements in a tasteful manner makes the card stand out.

For your first cards you can use very inexpensive rub-ons (remember those images you could transfer unto paper when you were young ?) with a nice image and some sentiments. Using a scoring tool just leave an embossed edge around your base card and then add the focal image point on either corner of the card, positioning the sentiment either across or below it. You could also add some ribbon across the card either vertically or horizontally to finish your card.

Try to experiment moving the elements around the card before either glueing them down or as from the previous example rubbing on the image unto your base card.

This the end of Part 1 of my card tutorial. I hope you enjoyed it and I will carry on with Part 2 explaining how to use sketches and pagemaps.