I recently discovered that nice greeting cards can cost up to $10 or more while scrambling to find a last minute gift for a friend’s bridal shower (the gift I ordered didn’t ship on time), something that made me resolve to make more cards and buy less! When you can make cards just as nice, why pay for that crazy upcharge, right? So our third (and my favorite) card this week is this confetti shaker card. It’s fairly simple to make and fun to shake around! I can see this working well as a snowglobe in the winter, or a beach ball in the summer, or even with a family photo behind it.

You will need:

  • Cardstock
  • Paper CD envelopes (They sometimes come in colors, but unfortunately my store only had white. If you don’t want a white card, feel free to paint/color/decorate yours.)
  • Confetti/Sequins/Glitter
  • Pens
  • Scissors/X-acto knife
  • Glue
  • Foam brush

First, trim your paper to the size of your CD envelopes, typically around 5″.

Take your X-acto knife and carefully slice open the CD envelope to unfold it. You can also just tear it open, but I’m not skilled enough to do that without tearing the whole thing! Once you’ve unfolded it, trim the edges off so you’re left with just the square with the cellophane.

Take another one of your CD envelopes (these usually come in packs of 100 or so, so you should be fine on extras) and lay it over your card, tracing the circle with a pencil or the unclicked edge of a pen, something that won’t get ink on your paper, making a slight indentation.

Using this circle as a guide, write or draw your greeting within the circle to make sure it’s visible. This is where you could also trim a photo or colored cardstock to fit, or anything else you want to be seen.

Put a small amount of glue on three of the sides and use your brush to spread it between the circle’s edge and the edge of the square. Press it gently on the front of your card. Don’t press too hard or you’ll squish the glue out into the middle of the circle!

Let it dry and be patient! I was a little too eager to see the sequins in the card and ended up getting some of them stuck in the still-wet edges of the circle. I don’t mind it, but it’ll be more satisfying to see all of your pieces floating around in the card.

After it’s dry, if the card and the envelope are different sizes, you can trim the card to make sure it’s even.

Using the side left unglued, add in your confetti/sequins/glitter. I found that tissue paper confetti didn’t work very well, because the static just made it stick to the cellophane. Sequins and other plastic confetti pieces work best, and glitter can add some nice dimension if you add it in.

Once you’ve added the pieces to the inside, squeeze in a little more glue along the top edge and seal it closed, again letting it dry. You can add some extra pieces of confetti to the outside edges, or decorate it further. Then have fun shaking the card to see all the confetti move!