Christmas cards, Wedding invitations, Birthday Party invitations and Baby Announcements are just a few examples of handmade cards that you may want to mass produce. When you are mass producing handmade cards, coming up with the design is the hard part. Setting up an assembly line to make them is easy.
Here’s step-by-step how I mass produced my Thinking of You Butterfly Card:
Step 1: Cut all paper. Fold card bases.
Step 2: Adhere Designer Series Paper.
Step 3: Cut ribbon. Tip: Use good scissors!
Step 4: Add Ribbon and Layer.
Step 5: Layer onto card fronts.
Step 6: Stamp Butterflies and Punch out.
Step 7: Add Butterflies to Cards.
Step 8: Stamp Greeting and Add Rhinestones.
Tips for Mass Producing Handmade Cards:
- Plan ahead. Measure paper and ribbon lengths, then check your supplies. Do you have enough card stock, designer series paper, ribbon and embellishments? If not, you’ll want to redesign your card or purchase the supplies you need.
- Doing all of one step at once really helps you get in the groove and get the cards done quickly. Cut all your ribbon at once, cut all your card stock at once, stamp all of your images at the same time, etc.
- Stamp first, then assemble. This card was an exception to this rule, but usually I stamp first and then assemble. That way if you mess up an image you don’t mess up your whole card!
Do you have any other tips for mass producing handmade cards? Please leave a comment if you do!
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When doing mass production only use techniques that you enjoy doing. If you don’t like fussy cutting don’t plan on using a fussy cut embellishment just because you saw something you really liked the looks of.
So true Liz! I hate fussy cutting… 3 cheers for images with coordinating punches!!
Great idea!
I definitely agree with “Stamp first, then assemble”…so I’m glad you said this card was an exception to this rule. I always stamp first so if I mess up the image, which I do sometimes
, I don’t mess up my whole card! Love your ideas…thanks so much for sharing them!
I’m all about the stamp first concept. Even for this card, I would have made a template. I’m becoming a fan of stamping on a die cut so that it can be easily replaced and at minimal waste.
That’s how I do my cards for the holiday’s and for the wedding showers, baby showers and grad invites/cards…I like to do it like that way, I always figure oout what kind of design I’m gonna use, cut and fold the cards then put them all together then do the design/stamp. It really does make it alot faster and easier…<3
I only started rubber stamping / cardmaking in February so I haven’t done a mass production yet. I really want to say thanks for the tips.
It was interesting to read the tips on mass production. I agree with you the design is always the most time consuming. When I’m designing a layout, I rarely use the actual DP or CS, I use scraps to figure dimensions, placement, etc.–no way am I going to waste DP or CS. Unfortunately, I would NEVER EVER EVER stamp last once the entire card is made. What if you screw up stamping the image, then the entire card is ruined. Stamp first, then assemble.
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