Tips for Making Homemade Greeting Cards with Your Kids

Oops! We're getting ready to leave for a family birthday party, and I have yet again forgotten to buy a card. No problem! I have my own staff of greeting card creators right here in my own home, eager and ready to help. As an added bonus, these homemade greetings cost just pennies on the dollar when compared to the store-bought variety.

Kids love to make greeting cards, and even more, they love the attention and praise that they usually get from the recipient. (And what grandparent doesn't love to recieve a custom card from the grandkids?) I always keep a stash of blank cards and envelopes in my desk drawer that I purchase from the craft store when they go on sale. Card stock can also do the trick. In my house, our first homemade cards simply involved setting the kids free with crayons or watercolors. They'd love to describe their pictures to the recipient upon presentation. My daughter always painted different colored blobs (which I was always told were monsters) with the birthday person represented by one blob in the middle. They were great - if I don't say so myself.

As time went on, we decided to give our homemade cards a little more thought and to put a bit more effort and planning into them. Creating these special cards always proves to be an occasion for some good family fun. Here are our favorites:

Valentines Day - Trace a heart onto a piece of folded card stock. (We use a cookie cutter as our guide.) Have the kids tear pieces of tissue paper in various shades of pink, red and white into little pieces, and roll them into balls. Then, glue the little tissue balls inside your heart shape, packing them in very close together. The finished product is quite lovely, and recipients are always impressed. One person that I know of even framed one of our creations, and it looked great!