Spring Cards - simple stripes

Everyone loves bright colourful hand made cards in Spring so I used the excuse of having some left over stripey paper to create a spring inspired easy card perfect for a Spring Birthday.

I used a ready made white card measuring 5 inches by 7 inches and cut the stripey paper to leave an equal border all the way round. The bold coloured square for the centre panel was 3 1/4 inches by 3 1/14 inches. I used one of my corner border punches to cut out each corner to add a bit of interest. 

I always keep an old gift tag that I use as a template so I used this template to trace around white card to make my chosen gift tag shape and then punched a hole to give it a proper gift tag look. I trimmed off a small piece of stripey paper to edge the tag - so whatever sized tag you decide to choose measure your strip to fit along the bottom edge.

I had some scrap ribbon and just tied a loose ribbon around a paint brush handle - this makes it easy to tie and easy to slide off once you have created your bow. 

And that is all you need in regards to paper and adornments. If you are making a large batch of cards for Easter or Spring this would be a good design to create as it is very simple and can be made quite easily.

Step 1 - Patterned Background Glue your chosen patterned background paper to your card stock. Make sure you leave enough room round the edges to see the white card stock. This makes the colours really pop out against the stark white.

Step 2 - Preparing the centre tag 

Using my home made gift tag I stamped a simple greeting on it an a complimentary bright colour to go with my chosen patterned paper. Using the strip of patterned paper I glued this along the bottom edge of the tag. Using a glue gun or strong glue I then added my ready tied ribbon to the centre of the strip.

Step 3 - Adding the elements together

I glued my bold coloured centre square to the centre of the card and using glue pads I then added the tag to the centre.

It really is a simple card but an eye catching one to beat the Winter blues. It would not take much to adapt this to an Easter Card my adding Easter Egg shapes, bunnies or Spring flowers but for those who like simple clean looking cards this makes the perfect hand made card for them!