Handmade Birthday Cards

Yesterday was the last day of the school holiday's and I'm happy to say that I haven't heard I'm bored once during the two weeks that they've been off school and kindy. Last week the kids and I took a trip to Bribie Island for a few hours of fun, playing in the sun, relaxation, shopping and eating fish and chips. Having visited the area previously I wanted to call into the local craft store as they have a huge range of paper and accessories that makes it idea to find craft supplies that are ideal for the kid's to use and the price is good. After talking it over with the children they decided they wanted to make some birthday cards.

 

As soon as they'd gone to bed I got onto Pinterest and I started pinning cards that I thought would be easy to do with the kids. The following day I asked each of the kids to choose two designs they liked, I then set about collecting all the materials needed and I went about taping all the pieces so that the kids could just stick them down. This method worked well with the girls due to their ages, they're five and three BUT I think that I could have just given Caelan pieces of information and he could have worked on it himself. He worked well and he got both his cards done relatively quick due to the simplicity of the cards he chose.

 

So with the younger two down for their daytime sleep I set to work getting the older two working on their cards.  It was fairly simple giving each of them directions and it also helped having the laptop set up so that they could see were they wanted to place their papers.


Unfortunately, Caelan and I fell that the cards he's made a more suitable for younger boys and won't really be good to give out next year to his mates. This won't be too much of an issue as it just means that we can work on making more masculine cards over the Christmas holidays. Caelan's already put in a request to make a few Christmas cards for his friends, teacher and family members so I'm looking forward to working on that project with him in the coming weeks.

Viveca and I worked really well together on her card as she was good at following my directions and this made it quiet simple to put her card together. I got Viveca to choose the paper she wanted to use for the star and circle because her card was really colourful and having her pick the colours turned into an educational opportunity. Although she isn't good at saying her colours she did a really good job with the ones she picked and this is her card. The other thing she did well at was pressing down on the stamp, hers was clear and I was impressed especially as I didn't think I'd inked the stamp too well.

So after putting a bit of effort into the cards over the course of two days the children have created six birthday cards. When I added the cost of all the supplies minus some of the embellishments because I already had them each card ended up costing $0.96. I can't buy a handmade card anywhere for that price and I still have six cards left to decorate which will reduce the overall price again. So for about seven hours work I am happy with the cards the kids have made.

 

Best of all the kids will have a card to take to the next birthday party they get invited to and there won't be another card like theirs which is always a winner. I will definitely be doing this again with the kids next school holidays, maybe next time they can design their own cards and I'll just help with the taping side of things.

 

Here are the finished cards that the kids made.

Viveca's Cards

Mackenna's Cards



Caelan's Cards

So tell me do you make your own cards or do you buy a card from the shop when you're purchasing the present. Mummy is hoping that the kids all make me a birthday card next year because I'd love to have one of these given to me on my special day.

 

Megan