The other day, I decided I wanted to make myself some business cards! Not so much out of necessity, as most of my calligraphy projects are done for friends and family who already have my contact information, but because I simply wanted a few to pass out to acquaintances and new friends.

Since I wouldn’t be giving them out left and right, I didn’t really have a need to get 100+ professionally printed ones. I decided to make my own!

(Apologies for the poor lighting. Daylight savings has really thrown a wrench in my after-work blogging routine…)

 

 

I started out by painting a light wash of my favorite site colors — sage green, gray, and light beige — on cold press watercolor paper.

 

 

The trick here is to not think too much about how it looks. The more abstract and messy, the better the final effect will be! Just be sure not to over-saturate the paper with water, because then it will buckle and your cards may not lie flat.

 

 

Using my handy paper cutter, plus an old business card as a guide, I measured and cut the paper into 12 cards.

 

 

As you can see, each card is different! Because I don’t need very many of them, I can afford to make each one unique. :)

 

 

I used my favorite lowercase alphabet stamp set to stamp “calligraphy” on the front of the card.  To make this easier, I used washi tape to turn the individual letter stamps into a word stamp.

 

 

I love the vintage look of hand-stamped words. Luckily for me, “calligraphy” was just the right length for the cards!

 

 

Next, I needed to add “Owl Ink” lettering. I did this by dipping a small paintbrush into black fountain pen ink.

 

 

The black ink looks very rich and dark once dry, which I absolutely love. In some cards, you could even see a slight purple-blue sheen where the ink had pooled!

 

 

Afterwards, I just wrote my name and contact information on the back with an 0.8 mm Pigma Micron pen.

 

 

I’m really happy with the way they turned out! If you like the organic, imperfect look of handmade things, then this is a great way to produce a small batch of eye-catching business cards without going through a professional printer. If I ever meet you in person, I would be thrilled to give you one!