I was asked to make a card for a newly engaged couple! I felt happy that I was asked rather than me offering the idea to begin with. Sometimes you have to put yourself out there and people will notice your skills! I’m still a hobbyist at heart, but I am more than happy to make something on request.

This would be the first time I’ve made a card celebrating an engagement though. When I looked for ideas online, most cards I saw tended to be rather elegantly decorated, and the colour themes were white and/or silver. I have a couple of materials already, but I definitely would need to get more, and maybe get some inspiration at the same time.

I already had a sheet of A4 pearlescent card that I thought would make a great card base, but by itself it wouldn’t be an attractive-looking card. In the nearby retail park we have a shop called The Range that stocks all sorts of essentials, including arts and crafts materials. The shelves are stocked rather haphazardly but there are some hidden gems sometimes. I ended up finding two handy items this time – the first being a silver and blue-themed paper stack, with four types of paper included. The glitter paper and the sparkly vellum paper looked like they’d be great for my card.

The second item I found was a pack of premade sentiments for most occasions. It was silver lettering and borders on white card which matched my theme, but I couldn’t see all the sentiments in the packaging, so I bought it on the off-chance that it would have one for my situation.

One of the sentiments was ‘Time to Celebrate’ which I thought I could use, but by itself sounded a bit generic. So I drew a little picture of a diamond ring myself on white paper. I used pencil to draw out the design, then went over it with a black ink pen and Prismacolor markers. With the two bits together, it would signify that this card is for an engagement!

The drawing is not the neatest thing in the world, and if I were a perfectionist (which I sometimes am) then I would have redrawn it, but sometimes the little mistakes can make the card have a more handmade feel.

I was planning on layering card with different shades of grey. When I put everything together, it just looked like a great colour scheme. I also knew that I wanted to use some light grey organza ribbon at some point, so I had a length on the desk just in case. Under the desk light, you can see the shimmer of the pearlescent card and the sparkly vellum paper!

The focal point of the card would be the picture of the engagement ring. You may have noticed that I drew the picture out first on the white paper, and I can tell you now that it was a mistake. In the end, I decided that a square frame would be good but perpendicular to the card. It was quite difficult to get the shape cut around the drawing! I should have cut out the square first and then draw the picture.

I already cut out a square of dark grey card, so I made the drawing square a little smaller. Then I cut out a square of the glitter card and made a 1cm border to sit on top of the drawing. The pieces were glued down with a liquid glue pen.

Originally I was going to have the light grey card sit on the vellum paper under the engagement ring drawing, but since the rotated square idea fill up most of the space, I decided to have the light grey piece cut smaller. I used a scalloped border punch on one edge only and stuck a piece of organza ribbon horizontally through the card. I had already used a hole punch on the sentiment tag, so I tied the neatest little ribbon that I could onto it, and sealed the edges of the ribbon with a lighter.

My border punch was not the neatest thing as you can see, I had to spend a fair bit of time with a craft knife carefully cleaning up the loose paper cuttings! I also taped the ribbon down, it is easier to do and it will not be visible.

All pieces were glued down with a liquid glue stick, and the sentiment tag and ribbon was stuck down with a small foam pad square. I layered it so that the vellum paper went on first, then the light grey card with ribbon, then the square picture. I kept the ribbon loose so that I could tuck the picture inside, and the tag was off-centre.

I was mostly successful with the liquid glue pen, but I think it might be a bit too strong for the delicate vellum paper. In some of the corners it had slightly bunched up and wasn’t smooth. It is a little noticeable unfortunately but not too distracting that I would start again.

Inside the card, I wrote a message congratulating the couple. You can glue a piece of paper down first but I thought the pearlescent card was nice enough to write directly onto. Overall, I’m really happy with the card, and I got a really nice compliment from the recipients. I will have to expand my cardmaking inventory to accommodate for more requests!

By the way, do you ever find that you can’t get the right envelope for your cards? I certainly do, since I always trim the A4 card down. I saw this tutorial on Make & Fable on how to use gift wrapping paper to make custom envelopes. Now I didn’t follow it completely as I approximated a lot of the measurements, but I used a bit of leftover Christmas wrapping paper to keep the card safe for the journey!

Materials used:
– pearlescent/light grey/dark grey cardstock
– glitter cardstock
– glitter vellum paper
– light grey organza ribbon
– sentiment tag

Tools used:
– craft knife and cutting mat
– scissors
– liquid glue pen
– hole punch
– magic tape
– scalloped border punch
– pencil, pen, Prismacolor markers