Customer Reviews

The Art and Craft of Handmade Cards

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I just got this book and it is wonderful! This book is well laid out, with step by step instructions, and lots of pictures. These are not cards for your kids to make. These are cards adults or older children will make that the recipient will keep as treasured keepsakes. Techniques such as marbling, crayon batik, bleach stamping, embossing, teabag folded cards, pop-up cards and calligraphy. Unfortunately that list doesn't do justice to the variety and beauty of the examples and explanations shown in the book.

I already had a book on paper marbling that was co-authored by Diane Maurer-Mathison ("An introduction to carrageenan and watercolor marbling"), and bought this book because of the beautiful work she had done in it.

I was not disappointed.

"Handmade Cards" is not your normal introduction to card-making, in that most of the examples in this book are crafted by professional artists (including the author), and the techniques used will take more than an afternoon to master. The results are worth the work, though. The multiple color photographs, alone are worth the price of the book.

The first chapter, "Preparing the Canvas" encompasses basic design principles and card-making tools. One of the trickiest parts of putting together a beautiful card, i.e. choosing the right adhesive is discussed in detail. You could make do with double-sided tape and whatever glue you have on hand, but the author explains why you shouldn't, and suggests other, better adhesives.

The second chapter, "Basic Card-decorating Techniques" is where you can begin to have fun with rubber-stamping techniques, salt-printing, dry embossing, stenciling, spraying, spattering, sponging, and airbrushing. These techniques (at least some of them) are fairly easy, except that the author and her fellow-artists take them to a very high level.

Chapter 3, "Creating Handmade and Decorative Papers for Card Design," is my favorite part of this book. The author instructs us on how to make our own paper (I haven't gone quite that far, yet), and how to decorate commercial paper with techniques such as marbling (I've tried two different types) and batik.

Bubble marbling is especially fun. Basically, you mix soap, water, and acrylic paint, and blow bubbles onto paper. You end up with some beautiful, totally original designs that can be used as background paper, or as the main design on your card.

Chapter 4, "Special Techniques for Creating Cards with Texture and Dimension" involves techniques such as quilling (curling strips of paper and gluing them into designs), woven paper, and pop-up cards.

The last chapter, "Creative Card Lettering" encourages the reader to try his or her hand with calligraphy. Some very beautiful photographs provide examples of what can be achieved.

I've only touched briefly on a handful of the techniques to be found in this book. I highly recommend it for intermediate and advanced paper artists.

This is a fabulous book if you are wanting to learn techniques. It is actioned packed and includes lots of fun ideas.