DIY Patterned Postcards

For my friends and family in the US and Canada, I hope you had an awesome long weekend celebrating Canada Day and July 4th! We had a fun and quiet one. A little trip to an outlet mall, and a local hike and a lot of good quality family time. It was awesome to recharge and get those creative juices flowing again, which brings me to today’s post – DIY Patterned Postcards. I have to admit that I am terrible at snail mail (go figure, right). I may change that with these cute postcards, though. I used my Silhouette CAMEO to create some of them, and the others I did by hand using a craft knife and cutting board. So the choice is really up to you on how you want to make them. Read on for the tutorial!

The What

• Silhouette Studio (there is a free version!)
• Silhouette cutting machine or craft knife and cutting board
• Cutting mat (for the Silhouette)
• Cardstock
• Printer
• Patterned images  (I got my images here for free on Creative Market – this week only!)

The How

1. In Silhouette Studio, merge your pattern onto a new document
2. Print as many copies as you need – these will be the patterned sides of your postcards. Reload them into your printer tray so that you can print on the other side
3. Move your pattern off the page, then show the grid to create your postcard design
4. Using the rectangle and line tools, create your postcard. Note: My outer rectangle (postcard size) was 5×7 in; my stamp rectangle was about 1.1×0.9 in. The little heart was traced from the images I got from Creative Market and filled with black. To get the black border, I thickened the line of my outer rectangle. I also added some text in the middle (I used the Century Gothic font)
5. For those using a Silhouette machine, once your design is complete, set everything but the outer rectangle to “No Cut”
6. Print the same number of copies on to the other side of the patterned pages from Step 2 above
7. If you are using a Silhouette, for each page, send to print and cut using cardstock settings. If you are cutting by hand, cut along the outer black border

And that’s it! Your pretty postcards are ready for sweet messages to your loved ones! So tell me – which print did you use for your lovely design?

Looking for some more inspiration? Take a look at my other Stationery Projects!