DIY Floral Any Occasion Cards

April 14, 2017

My husband Chip and I look forward to planting flowers and foliage in our patio planter garden each spring. Like two little kids, we watch with renewed anticipation and wonder as the flowers and greenery bloom into explosions of color throughout the summer. Nature provides the most beautiful backdrop for the outdoor barbecues and gatherings we enjoy hosting for family and friends. It will soon be time to repeat our yearly ritual!

Celebrate your special moments with these beautiful bloom and foliage cards created by our lead designer, Erica, and inspired by nature and the Pantone color of the year for 2017, "Greenery."

Happy planting!

Maria DelGrosso Dangelmajer

Here's a look at everything you will need to make your own floral creations

Supplies:

Cardstock Warehouse Cardstock Papers

Pop-Tone Collection: Spearmint, Limeade, Sour Apple, Jellybean Green, Gumdrop Green, Cotton Candy, Bubblegum, Pink Lemonade, Razzle Berry, Red Hot, Wild Cherry
Colorplan Collection: Racing Green, Park Green, Forest Green, Lockwood Green, Bright Red, Scarlet, Claret, Bright White
Floral die cut files

To start, we will need card backs for the actual cards. I highly recommend the Colorplan Bright White in 8.5x11 for card backs because it has a beautiful subtle texture and is nice and heavy to the touch. The recipient of your card is sure to notice the quality of the feel of this paper.

To create card backs, simply cut the sheet in half to make two 5.5"x8.5" sheets, and score them down the middle so they fold to make two 4.25"x5.5" cards. These cards can then be used horizontally or vertically.

*Scoring is a MUST for clean fold lines. You can learn how to properly score your paper on our Paper 101 page for scoring and folding!*

creating Bright White Colorplan card bases

Next, you will need to prepare your die cutting files. I use the Cricut, but you can use any die cutting machine. I simply opened the design software and searched for things like "flowers," "leaves," "vines," and "branches" until I found enough foliage to complete the look I was going for. You can make yours as simple or as complex as you like. Here is a look at all of the greenery and flower cut files I chose.

Cricut die cut files for floral any occasion cards

I cut the same flowers and greenery out of multiple colors and sizes to get a lot of variation. I like to have lots of extra pieces so I have options. If you resize the flowers, just make sure you have both pieces of the flower selected before you resize.

Once you have all of your pieces cut out, it's time for the fun part - assembly! There are an infinite number of possibilities and you can make your cards as simple or complex as you want. You can add multiple colors of greenery, or different shapes of greenery in the same color.

To attach the pieces, I used my trusty roller ball glue pen. I love how these allow me to glue small and intricate shapes with ease.

Since the flowers sit on top of the already-glued greenery, I recommend using glue dots to attach the flowers on top. This gives them a little bit of dimension and allows them to adhere to all of the pieces underneath them securely.

You can watch the whole assembly process in the video below:

Once you've finished your florals, you can either deliver your cards as-is, or add a sentiment. You can do this by hand lettering, stamps, stickers, die cuts, etc. I chose some coordinating alphabet stickers.

how to put stickers on floral greenery cards

To attach the stickers, I use an old sheet of sticker backing and my craft tweezers to get the placement correct before I stick them to the card.

Voilà! I added a few different sentiments to my cards so I could keep them on hand for when I need one. This was such a fun project, and was so easy that my 7-year-old daughter even made some!