No Card? No Problem!

So there I was, housewarming gift all wrapped and ready to go, when I realized I’d forgotten to buy a card. There was no way I was heading to the store again on Sunday afternoon. I don’t know what happens after about 1 p.m., but around these parts, if you wait until mid-to-late afternoon to hit some of these shops, it’s like all normal people get replaced with brain-eating zombies who just wander mindlessly around parking lots and have zero manners. If I can’t get in and out by 10 on the weekend, I wait until Monday.

But I couldn’t wait until Monday, as I only had an hour before I had to leave for the party, so the dilemma was: head back to the store to buy a card where I might encounter a woman who tries to chew on my arm if I stand still too long or make my own card and live. I picked Door #2.

Fortunately, I have enough cardstock and accessories to start my own paper business, so gathering supplies was easy. Now, if you have lovely penmanship, you don’t need to do what I do – you can print directly to your little card. And congratulate yourself, Miss Handwriting Queen. For the rest of us – I usually stamp or print out a greeting via the computer.

My housewarming card step-by-step:

This was my paper, so I chose complementary card stock in yellow and orange.


Type what you want to say in whatever font and size you prefer on your word processing program; here, I used size 16 Lucida Handwriting font. Do a print preview to make sure the words are where you want them on the page. I usually print them right in the middle. Feed your card stock through your printer and voilà:


Cut the card stock to the size you need:


Fold into a card:

And gather accessories. For mine, I used fabric flowers and eyelets.


I like to play around with placement and which flowers to use before making anything permanent.


Mark where the eyelet goes with pencil.


And use an eyelet tool to attach it. There are other tools you can use; I've seen entire eyelet kits with all the hammers and trimmings you'd ever need, but I have three sizes of this tool and it suits me just fine.


First, place the hole-making end where you marked the spot. You should do this on a self-healing mat or at least a towel because this'll kill a table.


This makes a hole, where you insert the eyelet through the middle of the flowers:


And once you bang with the tool on the back of the eyelet (inside the card), it all attaches nice and secure:


Don’t have eyelets and all that stuff? Buttons work just as well.


Simple, fairly quick and I didn’t have to wrestle with anyone at the store or spend a dime. Win-win-win-win!

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