Quilt Block Greeting Card

I wanted to share a quick little project I did last weekend.  We celebrated my sister Nicole‘s birthday and if you follow her blog you know she is an avid quilter.  Instead of buying her a birthday card I decided to make one for her.

Like a certain someone who has an extensive stash of fabric, I also have quite the collection of paper so I was able to make this with components I had on hand.   Which reminds me of a quote I saw the other day:

Ahem.

Equipped with my supplies all I need to do was take a quick look around Pinterest for a block pattern I liked.   I thought the sawtooth star would make a nice card and began cutting out my triangles.  I wanted the block to be 4″ by 4″ so I first cut out strips of 1″ paper and then cut them into 1″ squares using a paper cutter.  I then cut each square into two triangles using scissors.  The squares were small enough that I knew I could get a straight cut.

I used four different papers for the block.  I had three patterns and one solid, which actually has teeny daisies embossed on it.  I needed four triangles for the inner block, four triangles for the corners, eight for the sawtooth part and sixteen for the background (solid) pieces.

I made sure all the paper were the same thickness and I recommend using card stock weight paper because it’s easier to work with.  A lot of scrap booking paper is thinner and tends to wrinkle when you glue it, especially if you need to manipulate it into place.

I cut a 4″ by 4″ piece of card stock for the backing and just started gluing on my triangles, row by row.  I used a tool called a Quickstik which has a sticky end for picking up small objects.  The glue I used, and swear by for paper crafts, is Yes! paste.  It is acid free and it won’t wrinkle or warp your paper.  It’s not as slippery as regular white glue but you still have the ability to move your piece into place before it sets up.  I bought mine over two years ago and use it all the time and still have 3/4 of my pint tub left.  It hasn’t dried up or anything.

Once I had all my rows assembled I put a weight on top while it dried so it would stay nice and flat.

To assemble the card I cut a 4 1/4″ square out of glitter card stock and a 4 1/2″ by 9″ strip of pink card stock which I scored down the middle and folded in half to make the card.  I then layered the pieces together using double sided tape.  I love the bit of glitter peaking out from behind the quilt square.  It just wouldn’t be me to not include some sparkle.

You can either stamp or hand write your greeting on the inside of the card.

I made the envelope out of some lightweight card stock.  I just bought a new little gadget for making envelopes called an envelope punch board.  I’ll share that in a future post.  It’s a handy little tool.

It was a fun project and a nice way to add a personal touch to a greeting card.  Now I want to go through all my papers and come up with other combinations and patterns.

Before I close out this post I wanted to share a picture of my new desk set up.  Which looks exactly like my old desk set up only it’s longer and has another set of drawers.  It’s a minor change but I love having the extra storage and the extra space.  And it didn’t take me all weekend to assemble like I thought it would!  I actually got it all put together and set up on Friday night.  Very late Friday night but still it was a lot quicker than I thought.