DIY Greeting Cards – Paper Crafting – GF Video

DIY greeting cards are an easy paper crafting project using lino block printing. You can make homemade cards for Christmas, wedding announcements, birthday cards, you name it. The method we are using is called block printing, or linoleum block printing. Super easy to do, and a great kids art project.

Our guest crafts expert is Jessica Kaufman, who is a crafts instructor in the NYC area. You can learn more about Jessica at her website: happygocrafty.com

Paper Crafting GardenFork Style

I have done some block printing and paper crafting in grade school. I made some DIY Christmas cards using the linoleum block printing method. Looking back, this was the start of my love of print media. I moved on to silkscreen and letterpress printing later in school, loving it all.

Now that we have everything digital, I thought we should go super analog and revisit some neat paper crafting projects that you can do. Projects such as these are great for kids. The ink we use is a non-toxic water based printing ink, just wear a homemade art smock and you are ready to go.

We bought some blank cards and envelopes at the art supply store. You can also get these at retail stores such as Paper Source, or an at arts and crafts store.

You will also need a tool to carve the block, we used a Speedball brand lino cutter tool. The actual printing block comes in several forms, we suggest using the more flexible carving blocks, the hard ones are harder to carve for kids and adults. A breyer is a roller that applies the ink to the lino, get a rubber one.

We built a simple carving board, this allows you to safely do lino block printing. Get a scrap piece of plywood, put a small piece of trim on each side, and you are done.

simple carving holder thing

What do you think? Have you done block printing or other paper crafting projects? Let us know in the comment section below: