Quick and easy homemade stationary ideas! Perfect for holiday Thank You notes.
Happy Christmas Eve from Ciburbanity! Who’s in DISBELIEF that tomorrow is the big day?! *Raises hand with cookie dough stuck in her hair.* By now I can finally exhale with the presents wrapped, the meals planned, the packages shipped, the house cleaned (sort of), and it’s time just to enjoy the magic of Santa and giving and family. My kids are young, under 5 1/2, so being grateful doesn’t come as easily as I’d like. But one of the things I’m pretty insistent about is writing thank-you notes. And by “writing” I mean I’ll transcribe what they say and they’ll scribble their first initial. In anticipation of all the thank you notes that will be coming from our house over the next couple of weeks, I wanted to share these quick and easy homemade stationary ideas!
Start by finding some blank cards… we have a Paper Source near us and they carry blank cards and matching envelopes. Most craft stores carry something similar or you could always use watercolor paper or card stock cut to size.
For the first style, I tried my hand at embossing. YOU GUYS. Embossing is the quintessential crafter’s DREAM! It’s cheap. It’s easy! And it looks so profesh! You’ll need 3 things: an embossing stamp pad (it’s like stamp glue), embossing powder, and a heat gun. They make heat guns
I used a pencil eraser to add confetti dots by stamping the embossing glue. Then I poured a fair amount of the embossing powder on top to make sure the stamp was covered. Do this on a piece of larger paper so you can easily collect the excess and then just fold the paper to pour it back into the powder container.
Take your heat gun (temperature set at roughly 600 degrees) and hold it a few inches over the powder and heat until you can see it ‘melt’… it’s pretty obvious.
For the next design, I made a stamp by using a piece of small scrap wood and wrapped it with thick baker’s twine (I wrapped it with jute at first but it was too textured to make a clean stamp).
I squirted some craft paint onto a shallow dish and gently pressed the stamp into the paint making sure not to saturate the twine too much. How simple and pretty is that?
Washi tape is pretty much the solution to every craft dilemma, so I had to bring that in somehow. I just used three strips of my favorite color and trimmed the edges. Total time spent? 3 minutes? I challenge you to come up with something simpler!
Lastly, I experimented with a watercolor wash. For something as potentially easy as this, it took a few wasted cards to figure out what looked right. This paper isn’t particularly sturdy so there’s not as much time to play around with the paint as there would be with legit watercolor paper. Ultimately I liked the simplicity of a simple stripe up one edge. (If you don’t have watercolors kicking around, diluted acrylic paint should work just as well!)
There you have it! 4 DIY stationary ideas for all your Thank You note needs! Something about making my own cards makes it just a little bit easier to sit down and write! I am so grateful to be a part of this wonderful Classy Clutter family and wish I could write a thank you note to each of you for being such encouraging and thoughtful readers! I can’t wait for 2015 and all the fun and creativity it is sure to bring! Xs and Os from Ciburbanity!
Follow me on social media to get updates, sneak peeks and general rabble rousery: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter! Other simple crafts you might like?
Stencil Art (if you skip the frame, this is pre-beginner!)
Light Box
Doodle Rocks
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