Quick and easy homemade cards to be proud of!

It costs a fortune to buy birthday cards all year; I reckon I spend say £2.50 per card and I must send at least 20 to family and close friends over the course of a year, plus thank you cards and others. These are invariably rather impersonal and often a rush-buy, generic one, so how about these as a nicer, more personal alternative. They don't involve loads of time, thinking, designing, cutting and gluing and cost less than 30p to make. Make them in batches in advance so you always have them to hand at the last minute.

Children's artwork

1. Get your little one to paint creatively on a piece of plain white paper. make sure they use strong colours and don't mix them too much so they all end up a brown splodge. If they're not looking too clever, folding the paper in half creates nice effects or (as I found by accident!) press a piece of paper on the mixing tray at the end to create a nice, colourful print.

2. let it dry and cut out small sections of the best bits!

3. stick these to a coloured piece of tissue paper/thin paper

4. stick to a pre-bought card (I like these bright coloured ones from Hobbycraft)

5. frame it with silver/gold glitter glue around the outside and let this dry thoroughly (I like this one again from Hobbycraft as there is some relief to the colour once dry which gives more definition and interest)

Thumb prints

Here's an even easier alternative (thank you to my lovely friend Claire!) which also adds a lovely, personal touch

1. Take a blank piece of paper and get different coloured thumb prints; one each from each of the family or just the children as appropriate

2. Add features in a fine, black fibre-tip pen

3. Follow steps 3-5 above