Believe it or not, but summer is actually around the corner with all its festive occasions. Graduations, weddings and birthdays, all of which a little card to go with the present is appreciated. If you haven’t before, this year you should make it yourself. And before you throw away this idea completely, know that it doesn’t have to be difficult nor take a long time. Here are some easy DIY card ideas.

The good old taping technique

Basically what you do is making room for your message (thank you, congratulations, etc) by taping lines. After that the creativity starts. I’m using normal watercolour when doing the designs I’ve attached here. If you don’t have watercolour, you can work with coffee, red wine or other tinted liquids. The results are actually really nice considering the minimal effort that you put in.

When removing the tape make sure everything is dry. Then fill in the blanks with your message. Experiment with fonts and don’t be afraid if you think this is a difficult part. With today’s idea of craftsmanship, an “ugly” handwriting will be considered a piece of art. Make it a piece of your art.

Personalized cards

So, this is a way to create a design where the most essential part is the personal meaning behind it. What you need is a symbol, or another easy motive, to cover your paper. Honestly what I did was I found a picture online and traced it on to my paper. These are the kind of designs you only need one regular pencil to do.

Here are a few examples I did. One for the married gamers, one for the married travelers and for the 50-year old who loves a good beer and german sausages.

Others

If you haven’t had enough, here is a collection of other easy designs you can make. The birds are one of my favourite motives to use since their body literally just consists of two ovals with minimal details. Nevertheless it always ends up very cute.

Then there is the stick figure. By drawing a sign in its hand it’s very easy to forward the message you have by just writing it inside. Not the most fun one, but the fastest.

Not far behind we have the classic wreath. There are so many ways you can design this, here is a more quick and simple example and a more complicated one. 

I also did an attempt on writing neon letters. To get that kind of optical illusion I painted a darker shade around the edges, lighter towards the center and white in the middle. It really doesn’t take a lot of time. However if you have a little extra time you could add more layers of shades to get a bigger effect.

Good Luck!