Card Making Challenges: Endless Card Making Ideas Using Simple Prompts

The holidays are officially behind us. I truly enjoyed the cozy New Year’s and Christmas season — relaxing, and spending more time away from blogging and everyday card making. But that doesn’t mean creativity ever stopped in my mind. Quite the opposite.

Even during the busy holiday period, I kept thinking about new ideas, fresh products, and ways to make card making easy and fun, and more inspiring — especially when motivation feels low or ideas don’t come easily. Now that we’re slowly settling back into our usual routine, I’m so excited to start the year by introducing something I’ve been working on for a while: Card Making Challenges.

This blog post is here to help you understand how these simple prompts work, how they can spark creativity, and how you can use them for easy card making anytime you need inspiration. I’ll also walk you through one of my own card making challenge, so you can see exactly how this system works in real life.

What Are Card Making Challenges?

Card making challenges are designed to provide endless card making ideas using simple combinations. They work in two main ways:

First, you have a set of challenge cards, each representing one element of a card design:

• main color (or colors),

• background,

• focal image,

• add-on element, and

• sentiment.

You can choose these intentionally or pick them randomly — whichever feels more fun to you. Together, they form a clear design direction for your handmade card.

Second, there are premade card making challenge cards that already combine these elements for you. These are perfect when you want a quick idea without any decision-making at all.

If we do some simple math, there are over 10,000 possible combinations using these prompts. And realistically, once you start adapting ideas and thinking creatively, the possibilities for handmade cards are truly endless.

To make everything even easier, these card making challenges come with a card making kit that matches the challenge elements. That means you can sit down and start crafting in minutes — no overthinking, no overwhelm.

Card Making Ideas for Beginners: Mix, Match, and Create with Confidence

If you’re new to card making, these challenge cards are especially helpful. One of the hardest parts of card making for beginners is knowing what to put on a card. Colors, background, focal point, sentiment — it can feel overwhelming very quickly. These prompts gently guide you and give you a clear starting point, without limiting your creativity.

You can keep things super simple:

• scissors,

• glue,

• cardstock, and

• card making printables.

Or you can use your full craft stash — stamps, dies, embossing folders, Sizzix, Cricut, patterned papers, and more. The challenges work with any card making supplies you already own.

The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is to help you feel confident combining elements, trying new ideas, and enjoying the creative process. I also love showing how to think beyond the obvious when using prompts — and I’ll do exactly that in the example below.

Card Making Inspiration You Can Pick Up Anytime

Card making challenges aren’t just for beginners. Even experienced card makers sometimes sit at their craft table and think, “I don’t know what to make today.” These challenges are perfect for those moments when you need a creative nudge, a fresh idea, or a fun way to step outside your usual style.

They’re great if you:

• like having ideas ready at hand,

• enjoy creative challenges,

• want to use your supplies in new ways, or

• simply don’t want to start from a blank page.

You can use them daily, weekly, or whenever inspiration runs low.

How Card Making Challenges Spark Creativity

Now comes the fun part — let me show you how this works in practice. To make it more interesting, I asked my husband to pick a number from 1 to 366 so I could use one of the premade challenges. He chose number 205, which falls into the slightly more advanced challenges. This one includes two main colors, which can sometimes be tricky depending on your card making supply stash.

My card making challenge was to create a card using:

• pink and gray color combination

• dots on the background

• a flower as the focal image

• washi tape as an additional element

• a happy birthday sentiment

Before jumping into cutting and gluing, I used my card making plan to write down the project details, sketch a rough layout, and think through the design.

This planning step helps me stay focused and avoid overwhelm. If you tend to feel scattered when crafting, I highly recommend planning first — even a quick sketch makes a big difference.

You can find this card making plan in my shop, along with other simple craft planners. I also have a free sketchbook available, which is great for visualizing paper crafting ideas. And if you want extra help with layouts, my card making sketches are a perfect starting point for easy card making.

👉 Card making printables you'll love - visit Card Making section in my shop.

From Creative Block to Finished Card

Based on my sketch, I gathered my supplies. I chose a light gray card base and made the background pink. The soft pink-gray flower I used as the focal image comes from my printable card making kit and matched the challenge perfectly. I printed it on regular copy paper, scaled it to 80%, and made it sturdier by gluing it onto a white card base.

The Happy Birthday sentiment came from my printable sentiment collection, and I treated it the same way as the flower. There are two previous blog posts dedicated to printable sentiments and how to use them, so check them out.

For the add-on, I used washi tape. Among my stash, I found a dark gray tape with handwritten white text, which helped the sentiment stand out nicely. Add-ons can sometimes be the trickiest part of a design, so if you’re aiming for easy cards to make, it’s perfectly fine to skip them.

Since I didn’t have a dotted pink background paper, I created my own solution. I used a solid pink background, I made dots using hole puncher in two different sizes, and added them manually. This is a great example of using prompts beyond the obvious — backgrounds don’t always have to be pre-printed. You can:

• add cut-out elements,

• doodle details,

• stamp patterns, or

• create subtle textures yourself.

Extra Tips for Using Card Making Prompts

Here are a few helpful tips to make the most of these prompts:

• You don’t have to use every element. Try using just three if you want to keep things simple.

• If you want a real challenge, use two or even three prompts from the same category.

• Focal elements don’t always have to be one large center piece. You can repeat smaller focal elements, cluster them, or use them as accents to make your card stand out.

• Sentiments don’t have to be taken literally. For example, if a prompt says “Let’s Celebrate,” you could use:

  • Celebration Time

  • Celebrating You

  • So Happy for You

  • Time to Party

  • Cheers

Think of sentiments as a mood or message, not just exact words.

Explore This Product

Printable Card Making Challenges

Prompt cards for endless card making ideas

This card wasn’t hard to make at all. Pink and gray are easy to combine, and flowers and washi tape naturally work well together. Even though I briefly considered choosing a different challenge number, I decided this one perfectly represents the idea behind these cards.

This is the first blog post of the year — and the first one dedicated to these card making challenges, a beginner-friendly, flexible, and easy-to-use card making supply I truly believe in.

There will definitely be more blog posts featuring these challenges and sharing easy greeting card ideas using them. Be sure to bookmark my blog so you don’t miss what’s coming next.