Project One Hundred and Two: Making Fabric Business Cards (with tutorial)

A few days before I had my stall at the Made-It Market in Cambridge, I was about to design and print out some business cards onto card when I had a brainwave, how about making my cards out of fabric? I figured that would be more apt for my stall full of fabricy things, so I set to work. These are really simple to make (a lot bit more time consuming that having them printed on card for you, or even printing them yourself at home, but  a lot more unique).

Equipment:

T-shirt transfer printing paper

plain white fabric

patterned fabric

stiff interfacing or card (I used something I found in John Lewis that is like a mesh but I cannot remember what it was called)

sewing machine

Step One:

Print out your business card details onto the t-shirt transfer paper, making sure you print it flipped and you fill the whole A4 page with duplicates of the details. For more information on printing onto t-shirt transfer paper, see this post.

Step Two:

Cut out your printed information and iron it onto a rectangle of white fabric, about an inch smaller than your finished business cards are going to be. It’s up to you how big or small you want to make your cards, so choose your own measurements. The size you cut out your white fabric will be the finished size of the white centre of your card, as you don’t need a seam allowance for this.

Step Three:

Cut out your patterned fabric the height that you want plus seam allowance and double the width that you want plus seam allowance. I cut my pieces 3″ high by 7″ long. Once they are cut fold them in half, wrong sides together, and press.Now press under a quarter of an inch on both short sides to make a hem. Your long edges are left as is.

Step Four:

Position your white fabric into the middle of one half of your patterned fabric (the patterned fabric should be opened out at this point, with a crease down the middle), pin in place and appliqué your white fabric to your patterned fabric using a small zigzag stitch (I use my button hole stitch).

Step Five:

Now fold your fabric in half along the crease, but with right sides together, and stitch down the two long edges, with a quarter inch seam allowance. Turn your business card back the right way out. You should have a rectangle resembling a miniature pillow case.

Step Six:

Cut your stiffening interfacing or card into rectangles slightly smaller than your business card and slip it into the business card as a stiff interlining.

Step Seven:

Now you can topstitch the open end closed (the end that should already have a seam ironed down so all you have to do is topstitch). Continue topstitching all the way round the card. Now you are done and can admire your handiwork! 🙂 Sorry I don’t have pictures of each step and I hope it all makes sense. If not, let me know and I will try to explain it all better.