My Handmade Business Cards

Last week I made my own business cards, really calling cards, to take with me to the MN Blogger Conference.  I was excited and anxious to pass them out.  I am always pretty modest about the things I make.  Luckily my nervousness was eased when two wonderful ladies, Cari from Bubble Gum on My Shoe, and Deb from Dose of Happy, broke the ice and asked to exchange cards.  I was blushing later when I walked by Cari taking to a friend and saw her showing off my card.  I thought it was so sweet of her to share and her friend asked me for a card too.

I thought about these cards for a long time, but did not get around to making them until the night before the conference…yikes!  Despite the fact I had very little time to put them together I still wanted them to be special and exemplify the Teal & Lime brand I am trying to build.  On the way home from work on Friday, I swung by Archiver’s to get the supplies I needed, only I did not know what I needed.  I grabbed up all the fabulous things I could find that fit with my vision.  I worked into the night on and off putting the cards together.

The base card is teal card stock on one side and lime on the other.  The scrapbook card stock I found for this had this really cool ledger design.  I loved the lines and the grungy look with the really saturated teal and lime.  The Teal & Lime logo and my contact details were printed on my home printer onto full page sticker paper to make wrap around labels.  The logo appears on the front of the card and the contact details wrap around to the back on the same label.  The label also hold the two pieces of card stock together on one side.

To hold together the other side I used my sewing machine to stitch the card stock together.  I sewed them in one long chain…making a Teal & Lime bunting :)  I snipped the threads in between to separate the cards.

To truly make the cards stand out and feel special, I made sleeves or envelopes to put them in.  The sleeve was made with mini glassine bags, slightly see through.  I used rub-on vintage teal frames to add a pop of color and leave a place for a note.  I wrote fun phrases in the frames with a silver marker including “hello”, “nice to meet you”, “can’t wait to hear from you”, “look me up”, and “until we meet again…”.  I used machine stitching on the bags to make the width right to fit the card snuggly and to tie in with the stitching on the cards.

I think one of the best things about these cards is they were relatively inexpensive.  Here is the break down:

• 4 sheets of card stock – 99 cents each
• full sheet sticker paper – free (already had on hand)
• mini glassine bags – $3.99 for 25
• rub-on transfers – $4.49 for 25 rub-ons (I cut some large ones in half)

25 handmade cards cost me about $12.50.  Total cost per business card = 50 cents!!!  

On a larger scale 50 cents per card may seem high, but for handmade cards with envelopes I think it was just right.  Plus, the 50 cents was worth it to see a little smile every time I handed one out.  The envelope made it like a little present…and who does not like receiving a present?

To make passing cards out easy, I wanted them close at hand.  I found a cute little journal to take to the conference.  I glued a lime green envelope on the inside of the front cover.  I folded the envelope flap inside the envelope to make a pocket.  I stuffed my cards inside.  They were easy to grab and the envelope pocket looked cute :)

P.S. Deb from Dose of Happy made her business cards too.  Please go check out her gorgeous watercolor business cards.