Handbag birthday card

I went a bit crazy buying shaped cards recently and got these cute handbag-shaped cards as well. There is a small tab on the back so when you fold the card in half you fix the front and the back together at the top, so the card actually stands up by itself. It can easily be opened again to write a message inside.

As I wanted this to look like a bag I covered the handle in brown paper and the main part of the bag in pink patterned paper, and added a die-cut bow and some stick-on gems. Simples!

Pint of beer cards - Father's Day and birthday

I bought a template to make cards shaped like a pint glass - you simply draw round it on a suitably-sized card blank, though you could also draw and cut out this shape freehand as it isn't too hard. Just make sure the edge of the handle is the fold of the card so the front and the back of the card stay attached!

I wanted to decorate it to still look like a pint of beer so on the card above, I used a patterned yellow paper for most of it and plain yellow to represent the froth on the top. I cut out a small square and used gold outline stickers to say "to my dear father".

 

I did something similar on this card but covered it with printed paper that had 'man-related' words on it - if you look closely you can see it says football, beer etc. I also had a pack of metal tags with different alphabet letters, that you can fix onto paper or card using small brads that came in the same pack. I bought these ages ago for something else I made but still had the right letters to spell out the recipient's name. Of course if his name was more than four letters long, it wouldn't have fit on the card!

Shaped cards

Ready-made shaped cards are a great way to make handmade cards more interesting. You can get a wide range of shapes, including shoes, handbags, cars and I have even recently come across watering can-shaped cards which would be good for keen gardeners! The idea is that you save time and have a more professional look by using a pre-cut shaped card, but you can decorate it however you want.

A friend gave me a pack of five boot-shaped cards, and I decided to use one for my boyfriend's sister-in-law's birthday card.

I covered the main part of the shoe in strips of paper that had a raised felt design. Bizarrely, these were actually from Laura Ashley - they have a range of card making stuff that I found on http://madaboutcards.com. The strips were about an inch wide and intended as border pieces, so I stuck them as closely together as I could - I don't think you can really see the join. I then used a piece of sticky felt ribbon along the sole of the shoe and at the top, and covered the heel in patterned paper. As a final touch I added some stick-on gems as buttons.

I was really pleased with the way this turned out and have bought some different shaped card blanks to use in future!