One-Panel Note Cards...I'm a Genius!

Bwaaahaaahaaa! Saturday was a genius day in the Raihala craft room. When this happens, I just strap on my seatbelt and go with the flow. Over the next few days, I'll show the results.

First, the back story. I decided a quick way to make lots of thank you cards would be to make one-panel notecards. I made 18 sets of these for Christmas gifts last year, packaged in PTI's clear boxes (with envelopes) for teachers/therapists/secretaries. At a total cost of just over $2 each, these were an affordable and pretty way to thank all the wonderful people who help my sons learn.

Obviously, the design of one-panel notecards is different from the design of regular cards. Some sort of border is all you need to leave plenty of room for the written note.

To start, I stamped the poppy from Oh, So Lovely on the sides of four panels (cut from one sheet of PTI white cardstock) in black, intending to color them in, but they looked so good in black and white, that I left two plain. I also stamped the thank you from Pocket Silhouettes next to the flowers. I doodled (with a very fine 03 black Micron pen) the border in imitation of the lines of the stamped image, which was really, really easy. I actually giggled while doing this.

I knew the B&W needed a little "something-something" to kick it up a notch. My Sakura Stardust pen was just the ticket. Here's a close-up.

I repeated the notecard with another stamp from Oh, So Lovely. Giggled again.

After making 8 cards this way, I decided to experiment with other stamps using the same idea. Pocket Silhouettes worked beautifully, and I used autumnal colors for a seasonal feel. The pen used for these is a chocolate Zig Memory Writer.



As you can see, these are super easy and very, very CAS. Over the next few days, I'll share some more variations to demonstrate just how flexible and versatile this idea is. In a very short time, I made 20 cards (mostly one of a kind) using just 5 sheets of PTI cardstock and ink. I'll also talk about easy ways to create the lines as neatly as possible with minimal supplies.

Hope you've enjoyed these cards and see their potential as very affordable holiday/birthday gifts. You could even wrap a ribbon around the stack rather than buy PTI's boxes...but those boxes are just $0.60 each, which is still very affordable.

What do you think?