Thursday, September 21, 2006

DIY gift card

I decided to make a card for Gurl in conjunction with one of our important dates. It's been quite a while since I've done some hands-on artwork and I had to crack my head thinking of the design. Circuitry design is easy for an EE but it's a different story when it involves artistic design.

Being on a rather tight budget (I had other costs to bear in mind), I tried to keep the cost of making one under RM15. But with my art kit left at home, I had no choice but to fork out some extra money for the tools and material.

Gift cards for lazy people rule number 1: You don't have to start from scratch. There's always the option of buying a ready-made card, though you need to find a suitable one to match the theme and layout of what you're planning to do.

Got the card from Living Cabin, fancy papers from the local stationery store, which added up to RM8.80.

Fortunately I had some basic tools with me...so they don't count into the cost except the box of colour pencils which cost me RM7.50. I never knew they were so expensive cos I was previously using the set which I got during primary school!

A good start is to have a sketch of your idea. I tried to put it down on paper just to get a rough idea of how it'd turn out. After being satisfied, the real work began. I decided to use a cartoon theme this time (hence the colour pencils) to give the card a cute look.

After much, drawing, cutting, pasting and colouring (and getting my table dirty), my DIY gift card was done! Total cost: RM16.30. It took me about 2 hours from conceiving the design to actually making the card. It wasn't too fancy, definitely not one of my best but I was kind of satisfied with it.

How does it look like? I can't disclose it before it has reached the hands of the recipient....so stay tuned to find out :)

thought completed at 11:09 PM | 2 comments

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