how to edge paint business cards

During my business card research I was always drawn to the simple cards with that little unexpected pop of color. I also wanted to add a DIY element to my cards since that’s a big part of this blog, so I got the best of both worlds by edge painting the business cards myself.

I’m not going to lie, I was pretty nervous to DIY this project–I didn’t want to ruin a perfectly good set of cards! When my cards arrived, they had not been cropped correctly which actually ended up being a blessing in disguise. First of all Moo.com was super understanding and let me reupload a file, reprinted the cards at no cost, and sent them back as fast as they could. Secondly, this gave me a set of cards I could practice on and master edge painting before I actually took the plunge to edge paint the final cards.

Like most DIY projects, there was a lot of trial an error with this project. My first thought was to clamp a stack of cards together in the center and spray paint the edges. Spray paint can be awesome because it’s so fast and easy. Unfortunately, it’s also thin and runny, so it bled through any little crevice it could find and showed up on the flat face of every card.

I tried again with two clamps on the stack of cards and still had the same issue, although not as prominent.

The way to go if you want to edge paint your cards is simply with acrylic paint and a foam brush. (I thought it was only appropriate to use Martha Stewart paint since these cards would be making their debut in the Mecca of Martha.) Stack up your cards in a neat pile and weigh them down with something. (I had bottles of spray paint handy from my previous trials, but a rock or paper weight will work fine) and then paint on the edges of the cards. Make sure to cover the top of the pile with a scrap of paper or you’ll be sacrificing the top card from each pile. Paint will inevitably get on that card. Don’t think it won’t happen. It will.

I originally thought I would just paint the cards gold, but I liked the mix of colors from my spray paint trials that I went for pink and mint green, too.  Because, well, why not?

The only downfall to this method is that I ended up gluing all my cards together as the paint dried, and I had to manually pull each one apart. Fortunately this is a pretty mindless task and can be easily completed during an episode of Mad Men (or whatever show you’re watching these days).

One final tip: The thicker the card, the better! Again I got the Luxe business cards from Moo.com and absolutely love the quality and weight of them!

Super easy right? Now go out and get edge painting!

 p.s. We’re only on Season 4 of Mad Men, so no spoilers, please!