How to Make a Quarter Fold Card out of Recycled Paper

Do you enjoy givung cards to people? Personally, I like to save my greeting cards, but I have seen many people toss these in the trash as if these beautiful treasures were worthless. My personal recommendation is to make a scrapbook with all of your cards, which is a great memento that you can look back on in the years to come. However, how can you help the environment when it comes giving out cards since so many are thrown away? Try making a quarter-fold card out of recycled paper, which is a great idea for upcoming holidays such as Mother's Day. Quarter fold cards made out of recycled paper are also great creation for birthdays, and pretty much any other occasion that warrants making a card. Some people like to buy stamps and design their cards that way, but I am into drawing my very own pictures! Follow the steps of this tutorial to see how I made my own center fold card.

Every day people print out pages they will probably never use again, but you can give this paper new life! For instance, ever notice how the last page of some articles only have one line? So what are you going to do with that piece of paper that has just one line? Sometimes the last page of an article is filled with gibberish and ads, so go ahead and turn this piece of paper into a card.

If you are making a large card you can just fold the card in half, but I decided to make a smaller card for this project.

In the third step fold the card into a quarter section, which means there would be four squares if you opened this card up. Quarter fold cards are an ideal way to fold a piece of paper into a small card. Now it is time to decorate our blank card.

One of my favorite things to draw are tropical scenes, so that is what I decided to do with this card. Draw a picture that you like, or one that you think a friend would enjoy.

Coloring in the picture is fun because I get to decide what pigments I want to use. When you take a picture you cannot decide what color the sky or the ocean will be, well that is unless you use photo editing software.  However, how can using photo editing software be as fun as drawing?  Coloring in the ocean with a deco-aqua colored pencil came to me because this shade most reminded me of the ocean. The shading of ripples with the number two pencil gives the water a more realistic effect.

Here I used a grey colored pencil to add pigment to the trunks of the palm trees. This grey is very soothing and looks nice juxtaposed the deco-aqua color.

Here I added two different colors of green to the palm fronds, which gives the tree some depth.  I like how the pencil drawing helps the individual fronds stand out.

Finish coloring the rest of the card. Here I have added various shades of green to capture the lush foliage of a Hawaiian island. Have fun and do not forget to experiment when creating your own handmade cards. Recycling old computer paper is a great way to give new life to something that would have ended up in the waste heap. Quarter-fold cards also are the perfect size for framing as small pictures, which is what I may just do with this picture here since I like it.