Encourage creativity and kindness with DIY greeting card crafts
Crafting is a fantastic activity for kids to practice fine motor skills. DIY greeting cards definitely accomplish that, but they also give kids a chance to be creative and practice kindness. Of course, grandparents love getting handmade cards from their grandkids. However, there are a lot of other occasions for your kids to send cards. Some examples are holidays, birthdays, friends and family ill or in the hospital, and even those dealing with grief. That’s not even counting long-distance friends and family. Sending a greeting card to a faraway relative is a great way to help kids remember them.
To get you started, we’ve gathered 5 ideas for making, sharing, and organizing DIY greeting cards at home. Avery blank greeting cards are, of course, ideal for printing personalized greeting cards using our free templates, like we wrote about here. However, they’re also the perfect blank canvas for crafting DIY greeting cards.
1) Use DIY greeting cards to practice kindness
Caring for others, especially when they’re not feeling well, is always an important lesson for kids. Making DIY get-well greeting cards together is perfect for practicing kindness and caring as a family.
One way to use your get-well-soon cards is to make enough to store for future use. That way, you’ll have them on hand for any sick friends or family members. You can also make greeting cards to send to hospitalized kids (this website can help you get connected), local convalescent homes, or veterans. AMillionThanks.org is a great resource for sending cards to U.S. military veterans.
Get directions to make this DIY get-well-soon card that only takes about 5 minutes to make.
2) Stay in touch with sweet thinking-of-you cards
Thinking-of-you DIY greeting cards are a super versatile crafting activity for kids of all ages. You can have your kids send their greeting cards to friends, teachers, far-away relatives, or Grandma and Grandpa just because. Grandparents will love getting them!
Encourage older kids to start a greeting card exchange with their friends for some unplugged connection. They can save the greeting cards in a decorated memory box or scrapbook.
We love this simple DIY rainbow card for toddlers and elementary-age kids.
3) Use DIY greeting cards to teach gratitude
Practicing gratitude has oodles of benefits that everyone wants to give their kids, including positive effects on mental health. One of the best ways to teach your kids to practice gratitude is to model being thankful so that they have an example to follow.
For example, sending thank-you cards is a very literal way to practice gratitude. This is a perfect way to model gratitude for younger kids that might not be ready to grasp abstract gratitude exercises.
Making cards for others
First, make homemade greeting cards to express gratitude to others. Together with your kids, pick out a free thank-you greeting card template to personalize and print. Then, write your thank-you message and let them contribute. Finally, show them how you address the envelope and let them help you put it in the mail box. During the project, talk to them about how grateful you are for their teachers or a nice gift someone sent them.
Making cards for your kids
You can also model gratitude and boost kids’ self-esteem by giving them thank-you cards. Create a DIY card saying thank you for any accomplishment, big or small, and leave it on your kid’s pillow. It can be anything from helping set the table or cleaning up toys to helping take care of a younger sibling.
4) Share the love with heartfelt homemade greeting cards
It’s so important to encourage kids to express their emotions and show love to the important people in their lives. Whether you’re making DIY greeting cards for Valentine’s Day or just to say, “I love you,” why not expand and send some love out into the world? One way to uplift your community is to send cards to your local senior home on Valentine’s Day. You can even get the whole family involved.
Start by organizing a family card-making night. Set up little kids with an easy DIY greeting card craft project like our 3D heart card. You can also find tons of ideas for more homemade valentines (including free printables) right here on our blog.
This cute 3D Valentine’s Day greeting card is the perfect way to reach out and send a smile.
5) Make homemade birthday cards
You can never have too many birthday cards on hand. Between friends, family, teachers, and classmates, it seems like it’s always someone’s birthday. Having a ready supply of DIY greeting cards for any birthday that pops up is such a time saver.
Set up your kids with crafting supplies and let them go to town. Card-making is an activity that kids can do at any time and entertain themselves for hours. Entertaining the kids so you can get some quiet time is priceless, but stocking up on a few basic card-making supplies is also cheaper than getting a ton of expensive store-bought birthday cards every month.
Kids will love playing with stickers to create DIY birthday cards like this one.
How to organize & store DIY greeting card supplies
Start by sorting your greeting cards by occasion. Then, add them to a storage box in groups and use tabs to indicate the occasion or season. Finish off the box with a label and you’re done.
Here are the supplies we used to create our DIY card storage:
- Storage box
- Colorful repositionable margin tabs (74768)
- Ultra-fine tip black permanent markers (09230)
- 2″ x 4 blank labels, (by the package for inkjet printers 8253 / by the sheet 94207)
Make DIY greeting cards and send a smile
Card-making is a fun activity that’s easy to use for keeping the kids entertained on Saturday afternoons. The kids love it, and even benefit from DIY greeting card crafts. Not only do they get a chance to practice fine motor skills, but, they can also practice kindness, gratitude, and creativity. Indeed, when done mindfully and with purpose DIY greeting card crafts can be an enriching activity for the whole family.
For more card-making resources, use the button below to check out our full selection of blank card styles as well as more greeting card projects and tutorials. We even have awesome ideas to make last-minute Christmas cards. You can also have your personalized holiday cards printed on professional digital printers with our WePrint® service.
