Card Making Basics: Cutting and Carving a Card

The basics of making greetings cards is ... wel, a card.

This instructable demonstrates te easiest way to make a nicely cut card.

You'll need
- a knife
- a (metal) ruler


- a cutting mat with squares on it
OR
- a piece of cardboard to cut on
- a very fine pencil
- an eraser

Step 1: Carving the Back of the Card

If you fold a piece of thick paper, the fibres of the paper wil crack, causing an ugly uneven fold in the back of the card. To prevent this, we'll use a simple knife to cut slightly in the back of the card.
If it's your first time doing this, try on a leftover of paper to try out how hard you have to cut to be able to nicely fold the card, but not to damage it.

When using a cutting mat with squares you don't have to measure where the half of your card is. If you use the old fashion way, you can measure how long the card is, make marks with the pencil, cut the line and erase the marks.

You can also use an embossing pen, tip of scissors, non-working ballpoint, ... to make a crease in the back of the card. But in my opinion, cutting works best.

Step 2: Cutting the Sides

When using the mat with squares, it's pretty easy to even out the sides of the card. We'll, it's as easy as without the squares, but you'll be sure you've got a straight card with nice 90 degree corners.

Place the back of the card against a vertical lign while the top of your card is place just over a horizontal one. You can now place your ruler on the horizontal line. That way your card will have a perfect corner. If you're not using a mat, you can ether measure the sides, or just guess. If your vision isn't that bad, I'm sure the corners will be good enough.