Hi friends! Today I’m sharing some of my favorite card making supplies since as you may know, I love making cards!

Writing Utensils

I have many different sets of these, my favorite ones are the neon set. I love the metallic gold and silver ones, too! We also bought a set of the pastel ones to share since there’s two of each color in the pack. I have to say, they don’t show up as well as some of the others on light paper though. Of course, I always have a couple white Gelly Rolls on hand as I find myself using those quite often. 

These pens are amazing! I think you would be able to find at least one in every artist’s pen collection. They are wonderful for both writing and drawing. I find myself using the 05, the 08, and the 02 the most, but I do use the other sizes every now and then, so it’s worth buying the whole pack. I use the 02 mostly for drawing and the 05 and the 08 for writing and hand lettering.

These are classic pens. They have great ink flow which makes them great for smaller hand lettering projects or for writing a card. Black is my favorite color when it comes to these, but I do use green and blue sometimes.

Paint, but in pen-form. Sort of. These markers achieve a paint-like look which is great for covering large spaces. They don’t bleed through, which is very nice when working on thinner paper. I also write with these if I need to cover a large amount of space. 

Paper

We have a large stash of cardstock scrapbook paper that will likely last me the rest of my card-making career, so I haven’t bought paper in a long time. Any paper will do for card-making, really. I prefer cardstock because it’s thicker, and it holds up without bleeding through. I have used thinner paper to make many cards, and they have ended up just fine. 

Cutting Utensils

We have an old Fiskars one, it looks like they don’t make our identical one any more. I find this very useful when I am cutting large batches of cards. 

If I need to do an intricate cut or I just have one card to cut I’ll often turn to my rotary cutter. If you cut a lot of paper with your rotary cutter and you also cut fabric, I would recommend having a separate one for each since paper easily dulls your blade. 

  • Scissors 

I do occasionally cut cards with scissors. However I generally prefer to use one of the above methods because I don’t cut a straight line well with scissors, even if I have a guideline to follow. 

Other Helpful Tools

  • Ruler

Rulers are a must when it comes to making cards. I most often find myself using a regular wooden one, but sometimes I’ll use a sewing ruler similar to this one. I do try to refrain from using the sewing ruler I have because of the gaps in the plastic. I find that when I’m running a pencil along the edge of it, it will tend to give a little when the pencil reaches the spot where the gap is. 

Very handy for erasing pencil guidelines or other markings. If I’m writing or drawing something that needs to look really nice, I always turn to pencil guidelines and maybe even a pencil draft.

A Great Book for Inspo

"Happy Mail" by Eunice and Sabrina Moyle is an awesome book full of great card inspo. The sunshine card in the cover photo for this post was from a tutorial in this book. (It's also pictured on the cover!)  

When to Make and Mail Cards

There are many fun holidays and events you can make and mail cards for! See a few in the list below!

  • Birthdays
  • Anniversaries
  • National Letter Writing Month (Celebrated every April)
  • Thinking of You Card Week (Learn more here)
  • Just Because Day (August 27)
  • Thanksgiving
  • Mother's Day/ Father's Day/ Grandparents Day
  • Valentines Day
  • National Day of Encouragement (September 12)
  • Easter
  • New Year's
  • Whenever you're thinking of someone!

That’s all for now! Go make some cards!

Happy crafting!