I have been designing and creating hand printed cards for a while now. I love drawing up new designs and carving them before seeing the final result printed. In this blog, I’m going to share with you some projects that I like to do with these cards after use.
I like to think of each handprinted card as a small work of art. If you like the print, why not pop it in a frame? This photo was taken by my grandparents from their country cottage. The framed prints look delightful in a cluster.
Printing by hand gives each card individuality. Due to the nature of hand printing, occasionally a print will come out as a misprint; often this means important elements are lost, having either filled with ink or not having enough ink transfer to a particular area. I never throw these away as there is often much of the design that is still good and salvageable. There is so much that can be made with these prints.
One thing I often make from my misprints are gift tags, simple to make and useful. Old cards and fancy card packaging can also be reused for this.
To make them, I cut the misprinted card into strips before placing it into a tag punch and cutting individual tags one at a time. I then thread through the natural twine that adds to their rustic charm.
Another thing you can make from misprinted cards is motifs for crafting. I made a handful of these robin motifs for card making. A knife was used initially to cut the inner details of the bird, before cutting around the outline. I was able to make two or three birds from one card front, but it was very fiddly and time consuming, so I didn’t make many. I recently drew up my bird design on a computer in order to be able to use a laser cutter to cut these shapes in future. I was really impressed with the results; the cuts were clean after some experimenting with the speed and power levels. Another bonus was that I was able to get six birds from one half of card with very little leftover waste. These make lovely motifs, and its interesting to see how they each turn out depending on the original print. It’s lovely to see their individuality. These motifs could I’m sure be used on other craft projects too as embellishments for gift boxes or scrapbooking or making decorations from. The possibilities are endless, as they say.
I hope this inspires you to create something beautiful and give new life to your cherished cards.
