Crafting Friendship Cards with Wallpaper & Border

Are you looking for something to show your appreciation for precious friends in your life? Consider crafting friendship cards! I made a few of my own just last week.

Ever since Workshop Week, I’ve been following a bunch of artists & paper crafters on Instagram. I’ve been particularly interested in finding different ways to use wallpaper samples as crafting material.

When I saw a fairly simple card craft tutorial, I gave it a whirl. I tweaked the design a bit to make my own version using what I had on hand. The following was made using coordinating wallpaper and border from a damaged book and a single sheet of yellow card stock.

I liked how the card turned out (for the most part), but it was too heavy to send through the mail using a single stamp. So, I decided to tweak it a bit to make it lighter.

Plus, I wanted to pretty up the cover and figure out something simple to write inside of it.

So I dug out some old scrapbooking paper I had (from 10+ years ago) to use in place of some of the card stock. And I made a second attempt at the same essential design using the scraps of the same wallpaper & border.

Since the wallcovering came in two other colorways as well, I decided to make three cards instead of just one. And this is what I ended up with.

What do you think?

I really liked how they turned out.

I crafted a few custom sized envelopes from 6″x9″ envelopes and sent two of the cards to friends. And I kept the third one for myself. (I used the blank white space on the back of the card to handwrite a personal message to each friend.)

Why Wallpaper?

What I like about using wallpaper and border as crafting material is its durability and professional artistry. And because I used the paper from a manufacturer’s wallpaper sample book, I had several specifically designed-to-coordinate patterns to work with.

Why The Above Card Design?

The card’s design when slightly opened, acted as a stable paper easel, making it simple to display on a shelf without having to prop it up or worry about it falling over or flattening out. Pretty smart, don’t you think?

Personally Handcrafted & Customizable

I liked crafting these cards myself because I was able to pick out the patterns & colors with my recipients in mind. And I formulated and drew/lettered my own customized sentiment, using my choice of writing/drawing instrument.

This gave me full control over the look of the finished product.

While I didn’t design or draw the artwork printed on the wallpaper itself, every other component had my hand in it.

Overall, I found the handcrafting of this project very gratifying. And I imagine my recipients will appreciate the personal attention, time & energy spent not only creating these pieces but creating the cards specifically for them.

Crafting friendship cards, in my view, is a wonderful way to express creativity and personal care for our friendships.

And since I kept one of the cards for myself (and now have it displayed in my home), I have a visible reminder in place of those precious friendships for whom I crafted this particular card design.

If you’re looking for a way to express appreciation for the friendships in your life — or you just want something worthwhile to do, I highly recommend giving crafting friendship cards a go.

And then let me know how it goes for you (and even send me a pic)! I’d love to hear about it. 🙂

Sincerely,
Carrie (not Kelly)