How to Make a Beautiful Handmade Card in 15 Minutes

Putting your time and creative energy into creating a handmade card is a beautiful way to express your feelings for a person and create a moment of genuine connection. However, sometimes the word “handmade” conjures visions of hours spent on laborious construction. But that doesn’t have to be the case! With a few basic tools and a little inspiration, you can make a beautiful handmade card easily within just 15 minutes. 

Helpful Supplies to Speed Up Your Card-making Process

     1. Cardmaking Kits

The most time-consuming part of creating a craft is the preparation, planning out your design, and gathering supplies. But with a cardmaking kit, you can cut down on that process. Altenew’s Creativity Kits are fantastic collections of crafting supplies ranging from stamps, dies, washi tapes, inks, and more, paired with instruction booklets that feature guides to make several different card designs. 

       1.1 Quick Cards with Creativity Kits

Altenew Creativity Kits are pre-assembled sets of materials such as stamps, dies, watercolors, stickers, and more, paired with guided instructions to make several different cards. These are especially helpful if you’re looking for new inspiration when combining products and techniques. And they’re an easy way to add selected items to your crafting collection at a great value. Because Creativity Kits have most of the preparation done, they’re a great time-saver when it comes to making cards.

2. Scrapbook Paper

An easy way to add dimension to your cards without much effort is by using patterned scrapbook paper! These are a great item to have in your supply collection as they're versatile and have a lot of applications. Using patterned papers with dies, stamps, or as backgrounds, is an efficient way to save time and also add a little something extra to your crafts. 

2.1 Cards Using Scrapbook Paper

Scrapbook paper collections have the great advantage of having many different elements throughout a pack, like flowers that can be cut out, or backgrounds to fill a card. And since scrapbook paper sets are thematic, you’ll find that no matter how you use them to arrange a card, all of the elements will work together! This is a great way to quickly put together a card with ease without working too hard to find complementing elements. 

Altenew has several scrapbook paper collections to choose from. Over on our blog, our design team member Therese puts together 3 easy cards using our Reflection Scrapbook Paper Pad from the Reflection Scrapbook Kit. Take a look!

3. Time Saving Techniques

3.1 Simplify, Simplify Simplify

Altenew has a knack for layered stamp sets. It's a real treat of a technique to create robust and full designs. Especially when it comes to floral stamps. An Altenew layered floral stamp set can come with upwards of 20 stamps! And while the results are gorgeous, it can take a good bit of time and effort to create all of those arrangements and layers. Usually, this requires you to employ something like a MISTI Stamping Tool, stamp cleaner, and several different inks.

That’s why, when you’re short on time we suggest ditching the layers and sticking with a simple acrylic block to cut down on equipment! Skipping some of the layers in a stamp set can really reduce the amount of time spent creating a card, and it also creates a fun rustic effect to the image, effectively allowing you to see your stamps in a new light!

A great example is this charming card using the Sunflower Daisy Stamp Set. While the set includes 21 separate stamps, this card functionally utilizes only 2 of them!

3.2 Using a Large Outline Stamp

A great way to save time when making a card is to utilize a big space-filling stamp. Paired with a bold crisp dye ink or even one of our shimmery pigment inks, it creates a simple but impactful design.

Check out Design Team member Laurie Willison’s Pen Sketch Mandala card over on our blog! She quickly creates these simple but elegant cards with less than 5 supplies. 

3.3 Clean and Simple Cards and Utilizing Negative Space

A card doesn’t have to have bold explosive patterns and multiple layers to be gorgeous. A simple card can be just as effective. Utilizing negative space around a single stamp and sentiment is a great way to make a gorgeous card in just a few moments. Negative space can highlight a stamped design or sentiment, creating a focus of attention, drawing in the eyes. And just because it’s simple, doesn’t mean it has to be boring. A great way to add dimension when stamping a solo image is by using different colors of inks to add some variation throughout.

One of our design team members, Aga, has the perfect example with a clean and simple card tutorial using the Engraved Flowers Stamp Set over on our blog!  

3.4 Saving Time with Washi Tapes

Washi tapes come in a wide variety of sizes, colors, and patterns. And because they're so easy to use, it’s no wonder making a card with them can be done in as quickly as a few minutes. Wide washi tapes can cover an entire card space, making a sufficient background to quickly add a sentiment. Or smaller washi tapes can be arranged for a minimalist design. If you're making a batch of cards, washi tape is a great way to make sure each design is uniform without much effort. 

Over on an episode of Sketch Starters with Nicole, Nicole makes two gorgeous cards in just a few minutes, using several different washi tapes. Check it out on our Youtube Channel.

Making a card in 15 minutes is possible! Beautiful, lovingly made handmade items don’t always require hours of labor and delicate work to make. It’s completely possible to make something beautifully crafted in just a few minutes. This can be especially helpful when you're making several batches of cards and have limited time to spend on each design.

With just a few tips, a little inspiration, some crafting supplies, AND your creativity, you can quickly put together gorgeous cards in 15 minutes!