How to Make Fabric Gift Cards

Making your own fabric gift card is a great way to express and communicate what you’re feeling in a very authentic and personal way.

The design possibilities are endless, and you can’t deny the comforting tactical feel of a handmade card. Adding a fabric tough takes it to a whole new level.

With fabric, you have so many colors, patterns and even textures that help support the emotions of what you’re delivering with your card.

This is art as a gift in such a basic form, yet it carries with it meaning and thoughtfulness that the recipient will cherish for a long time to come.

Practically speaking a nice bonus of creating a fabric-based card is you get to make use of material scraps and throw-away fabric piece that you might otherwise leave balled up somewhere taking up space, or worse, toss in the trash.

Here we look at how April from PinkOddBird makes her cards. So simple, yet with results that are truly unique and beyond anything you’d ever buy from a store.

Supplies:

Before you get started, take a look and gather up all your cloth and fabric remnants. You may also want to bring out other types of scraps such as from projects that used construction paper, trimmed artwork, textured paper and more.

The point is to give yourself plenty of options, because you get to have full creative license with your artistic side on this project.

STEPS:

01 Cut and fold card stock

Cut an 8 1/2″ x 11″ piece of heavy card stock in half so you have two 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ pieces. Then fold one or both in half for two small cards per sheet.

We all know what happens when we try and fold heavy card stock – the crease is a bit gnarly. April suggests scoring first before folding. You can see how she does this in her video clip.

View this step in the video below from: 1:30-2:12

 

Now, you have a nice clean card; a blank canvas ready to adorn with your fabric pieces to create your custom design.

02 Lay out your selected fabric and glue to card

Next, comes the fun part of choosing small fabric pieces and assembling how you want them on your card.

April mentions when you have a lot of random colors and textures, you can go the hodge podge route for your design and just create an artistic collage.

If you have the right colors and types, you can of course find a theme or way to coordinate your pieces together into a cohesive looking card.

View this step in the video below from: 4:47-5:33

 

If you have a sewing machine, you can also stitch your fabric to the card stock. The only thing is, this creates kind of an interesting raised pattern on the other side of the paper with the thread, which is essentially the inside cover for your card.

While this does give it a personal and a “made by hand” character, April suggests simply cutting out a piece of regular paper and gluing it down over the stitches if having them visible is not your cup of tea.

03 Add a printed message to the front of the card

Your last step consists of adding your pre-printed message or sentiment to the front of the card.

This helps identify the purpose of the greeting card directly and is your first chance to say what you want with words.

I like how April affixes a small block of paper over the top of her fabric, then glues on pre-printed phrases to add her statement and complete the front of the card.

You can see in her video clip how she does the version she is sharing:

View this step in the video below from: 7:40-9:43

 

View the Full Video

Now that you have a good idea on how to make your own fabric card, you can watch the full video or find the segments you want to learn more about.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xIyBc_v6Hs[/embedyt]

 

FAQs:

What if I don’t have a sewing machine?

No problem – you don’t have to stitch the fabric down to the card but a good glue made for fabric would be good. Of course Elmer’s school glue can work as well but be sure to spread it out evenly and with a thin layer to avoid any awkward bumps in the fabric or glue coming through on the other side of the card.

You can also be creative and brainstorm other ways to hold the fabric in place such as with paper fasteners (the little round metallic buttons could be cute!) or small safety pins.

You could also use filament strapping tape; the tape with the tiny rows of strings in it could offer a fun, throwback look.

A good old fashioned stapler can work here too to get the fabric to stay securely in place. Try colored staples!

Additional Tips:

You can take this approach beyond just greeting cards. Think: book covers for special books or journals. You could even make bookmarks or large folders using the same techniques. Let’s not forget about fabric covered boxes either.

Another idea is to make a matching envelope using fabric. I’d suggest using a greeting card envelope, cutting some card stock to size and gluing that on first. The more stability you can have for your backing the better.

I love this way to use old scraps of fabric you might have on hand from your other projects. It’s like pieces of your own crafting history getting assembled all in one place to tell a story!

Be sure and check out and subscribe to other videos by April at PinkOddBird. April has some awesome videos covering a variety of DIY projects.