Quick and Easy Card Template
Happy National Scrapbooking Day! I hope you’re having a great time roaming the internet and finding lots of great deals, inspiration and freebies today.
If you haven’t heard, The Digichick is having a 30% off sale store-wide today! There’s also a special Birthday Bash category in the shop where everything is 50% off because this month also marks The Digichick’s 5th Anniversary! And we also have a huge selection of Grab Bag bargains new in the shop today as well—be sure to stop by and check it out! We are having one major party!
Well, I’m here today to share with you a free card template I created and wanted to share with you!
The other day it was my cousin’s birthday and I wanted to make her something special—and I thought she’d get a kick out of seeing my papers in real life, too. (Because no one loves you like family, right?) The papers I wanted to use were from my new collab kit that I recently created with the lovely Danielle Engebretson called Sweet Memories.
So, I grabbed one of Kelleigh’s templates (the Matchbox one) and I made her this little gift set:
I knew I wanted to use the box to hold a gift card, but when it came to making the card, I felt overwhelmed (those of you who may know that several years ago I was a rubber stamping fanatic are probably chuckling at me right now!). But you see, card making with paper and ink is a little different then using your graphic design skills to make something to print! I was intimidated.
But then an idea came to mind and I realized it was really easy to make a nice, simple card. I’ll show you how I went about it. (By the way, you can click on any of the images to enlarge them.)
STEP ONE:
First, I opened up a new document that was 8 1/2 by 11 in.
I pulled over a guide line from the ruler side bar of my document and set my two Guides at 5 1/2 and 4 1/4 (which is half of 8 1/2 by 11; when you’re making a card out of a sheet of cardstock, that’s where you’d cut and fold to create your card base).
STEP TWO:
I decided that I wanted to make my card be “short and fat” vs. “tall and skinny.” So the next step I took was to use the Rectangular Marquee tool to mark off the section of my card where I planned to place my patterned paper. The other half of my paper would be the plain white back.
I created a new layer and then I filled the area with color to create a Clipping Mask to use for the next step! You can either do this using the Fill (bucket) Tool or by hitting the Backspace key.
STEP THREE:
Next, I dragged the paper I wanted to use on to my template and clipped it to the base. Now I was ready to add the final touches!
STEP FOUR:
I used the Shape Tool to make a long, narrow strip on which to write “Happy Birthday.” I added a Stroke to the strip, in order to help it stand out from the patterned background. Then, I clipped some yellow paper to the strip and used the Text Tool to type out my greeting.
And I was done! It was ready to print and ready to cut in half to make into two cards!
Now, one very important tip here—make sure that your printer can handle a “full bleed” or else your card might shrink a bit during the printing process and cut off part of your design! You want to set your printer to print things right to the edge to make the trimming process super easy.
As promised, here is the Quick & Easy Card Template I used to make my card, if you would like to use this as a starting place for making your own! I’ve included the paper strip and the stroke layer that you can also use (if you like. If not, feel free to ignore them).
I hope you enjoy using this template! Be sure to come back and show us what you made! And if you’re looking for some free paper to use, remember that we still have last year’s NSD freebie, Paper Daisies, available for download as well.
Happy scrapping!
Other Articles by Nicole Seitler:
- Spotlight on: BasicGrey - February 26th, 2011
- For the Love of Hybrid! - February 24th, 2011
- Spotlight on: Jennifer Fox Designs - November 20th, 2010
- Make your own Autumn Centerpiece - November 8th, 2010
- Spotlight on: Dysfunctional Design - September 25th, 2010
