How to Sew Fabric Greeting Cards From Scraps: A Fun, Easy Scrap-Busting Project

Hi!

Are you looking for a quick sewing fix this week?

Grab those fabric scraps that are too small to quilt with but far too pretty to throw away, and turn them into handmade greeting cards!

These little cards are quick and easy to sew, wonderfully scrap-friendly, and a fun way to turn your quilting leftovers into something useful and beautiful. Best of all, you can make a stack for a fraction of the cost of buying cards—and once you start, you may find yourself looking for excuses to make more!

Recently, my local go-to shop for buying inexpensive greeting cards closed down, and I really didn’t want to pay something like $10 for a card at the other shop, when I knew it would probably be read once, then thrown out a few days later.  That got me thinking, and I remembered a few years ago when I sewed a few cards for a Christmas blog post, and I figured it was time to give it another go now.

 

How to Sew a Greeting Card

It’s so much fun!!!!

I forgot just how quick and easy it is, and I have to say – I really liked the creative side of it too.  I can tailor-make a card specifically for someone, and have it finished in about 10 minutes.

We’ve all got more fabric scraps than we know what to do with, and some of those prints are PERFECT for sewing to a card.

There’s always pretty florals –

or plenty of birds and animals –

And when you’re not worrying about seams or perfect sewing (or cutting) it is honestly so quick to do, and I think they actually look really good too.  They look quite different, and I think most people recognise and appreciate a hand made touch these days.

 

How do you sew your own cards?

All you need is some cardstock, a glue stick, your fabric scrap basket, and your machine.

Whilst you could cut and fold your own card from cardstock, I found it easier and cheaper to just buy some blank cards from Kmart.

I found these in Kmart the other week.  Packs of 50 cards (with envelopes!) either in plain natural brown, or in a box of 10 different colours.  Each box was only $6!  (Which works out to be 12 cents per card!!!)

These cards can be as simple or as detailed as you’d like.

I made a birthday card for an adult niece the other day.  She loves purple, and is more ‘goth’ than flowery, so I found some leftover Kaffe fabric, and a purple coloured card.

I cut out a rectangle of fabric to fit on the front of the card, ran my glue stick around near the edge of the fabric (on the wrong side), and then stitched it to the card with my machine.  I thought it still needed something to lift it a bit, so I added a hot pink strip.  I used a touch of glue to hold it in place, then just sewed up and down on top to secure it and add a bit of stitched detail.

The inside looked like this, but I actually don’t mind that either.  I think it adds to the hand made feel.

I needed a couple of cards for my daughter’s (bird obsessed) friend last week too.  For one, we just cut a rectangle from Tula’s bird print above – two sweet birds with the green and orange background was really cute. When you have a great print, just let it be.

For the other card, I found an owl print instead.

I fussy cut a piece, decided I liked it on the natural brown card and stuck and stitched it on.  I added a couple of loops and swirls to fill in the card.

It’s been a bit of a birthday month, and another family member is into cycling…

I found this print on a fat quarter scrap, and just added a piece of denim behind it.  I fringed the edge of the denim first, to add a bit of texture, then sewed the bike on top.  Job done!

 

Tips to Try:

* Sometimes it looks better to sew around something 2-3 times.  A ‘hand-drawn’ look to the stitching makes it look arty, and you don’t have to worry about super neat and straight stitched lines then.  If it’s a circle, go around it a few times, overlapping the stitched circles, or if you’re adding something on top, don’t be afraid to use the stitching as a design element too.

* Sewing through cardstock will make your needle go blunt quicker than sewing just fabric.  Not instantly (if you need to whip up a quick card), but it will once you’ve done a few.  You may want to keep a couple of old needles for sewing cards, and remember to change to a new one when you get back to sewing fabric to fabric again.

* I sewed with my regular size needle, and just used whatever thread I had on the machine. If you wanted to, you could have some fun with heavier weight or special threads (think metallic or variegated), but you certainly don’t have to.

* You don’t even have to have fabric.  Play around with making just stitched cards too.  It could be easy like a few parallel threads in a contrasting colour to the card, with maybe some running the opposite way too, like a plaid design, or you may like to free motion a design instead. Flower anyone?  You could add text too – a Happy Birthday, or Season’s Greeting if you want to.

* Use thread and simple embroidery to embellish your cards as well.  Imagine a single floral print stitched to a card, then you could hand embroider some 3D details on top – maybe some french knots, or lazy daisy stitches, or you could embroider to highlight a leaf or flower outline… Wow!

* I haven’t bothered with my simple machine stitched cards, but it is very easy to hide your stitching on the inside, and will definitely make your card ‘fancier’ too.  Just cut a pretty piece of printed (scrapbooking) paper to size, and glue it to the inside of your card.  I’d glue to both sides, then fold a nice piece of white paper cut slightly smaller than the card size to be the insert that you write your message on.  You could glue the right hand message side down on the card if you wanted to, or you could simply stitch up the spine of the card through all layers to secure it nicely.

 

I’d love you to give this a go next time you need a greeting card.  Have a play, enjoy the process, and get creative.  I’d love to see what you make, and do let me know below if you have any more suggestions that we could all try when we sew our greeting cards.

Enjoy!