Burlap Lace Card Holder Tutorial

About a year ago, I stumbled upon the DIY Christmas Card Holder by Kristen Duke Photography. It’s an ingenious was to display greeting cards so I decided to make two of them. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find the materials that Kristen used in her tutorial, so I’ve had to improvise. In this post I show you how I made a DIY Burlap and Lace Card Holder.

Read Kristin’s DIY Christmas Card Holder tutorial here:

DIY Christmas Card Display

Continue reading for the Sewn By Tanya tutorial “Burlap and Lace Card Holder”.

Materials:

burlap
lace
jute cord
matching thread

Equipment:

sewing machine
pins
scissors
ruler

Step 1 Prepare burlap and lace

I purchased a 1 meter of burlap and a lace remnant from my local fabric store. I always pre-wash my fabrics prior to sewing so I washed and dried my lace remnant with a load of other delicate items.

It’s been such a long time since I’d worked with burlap that I couldn’t recall how to wash it. I followed the advice on TheSpruce.com and hand-washed my burlap. There were a lot of burlap fibers were left in my wash basin so I’m glad I didn’t put it in the washing machine with other items.

Brown burlap & soapy water in a white wash basin — Hand-washing burlap

I placed a drying rack in my bathtub and hung the burlap up to dry. It was quite wrinkled by the time it was dry and a lot of pressing was required.

Brown burlap hanging on a white drying rack in a white bathtub — Hanging burlap to dry

Step 2 Cut materials

Cut 5.5” wide strips from both your burlap and your lace. Burlap’s loose weave means that it ravels easily. According to [https://www.onsuttonplace.com/how-to-wash-dry-and-cut-burlap/] the best way to cut burlap is to make a short snip at the edge, remove the thread that best corresponds to that snip and then cut along the channel that is left behind.

Closeup of pulling a thread from burlap — Pulling a burlap thread

Closeup of channel in brown burlap — Closeup of channel

You can make your card holders any length that you desire. I planned to make one about 4 feet long and the other about six feet long so I used one strip of burlap for the short card holder and sewed two strips of burlap together (¼” seam allowance) for the longer one.>

I trimmed a lace strip to the length of the shorter burlap strip and pieced together a long and short strip of lace to match the length of my longer burlap strip.

Step 3 Sew

Pin your strip(s) of burlap and lace right sides together.

White lace and brown burlap pinned right sides together — Lace & burlap pinned right sides together

Starting at one short end, sew along the short edge and both long edges with a ¼” seam allowance. The other short end will be your turning gap.

Carefully turn your card holder right-side out.

Press your card holder flat and turn the raw edges of the turning gap inside by ½”.

Top stitch ¼” along the edge of all four sides.

Closeup of top-stitching white lace and brown burlap — Top-stitching lace & burlap

Here’s a photo of my shorter card holder

White lace & brown burlap card holder on a grey carpet — Burlap & Lace Card Holder on a grey carpet

Step 4 Add Jute

Lay your card holder on a flat surface (the floor works for long ones). Starting at the bottom of your card holder, lay out some cards on your card holder with a spacing of at least 1/4” between them. Mark the centers of the gaps with pins along both edges of your card holder.

Multicolored greeting cards along the burlap & lace card holder — Greeting cards perpendicular to the Burlap & Lace Card Holder

Orient your cards in either parallel to your card holder, perpendicular to your card holder or use a mix of both. Keep in mind that cards of a similar shape vary in size.

I placed the cards along my short card holder perpendicular and along my longer card holder -parallel to it.

Starting at the bottom of your card holder, sew the jute cord to the card holder at each place that is market with a pin and ~ ¼” from the long edges of the card holder. Use a zig-zag stitch and stitch along ~1/4” length of the jute cord. Cut the jute cord near the stitches at the top end of your card holder and repeat for the second edge.

Closeup of sewing the brown jut cord to the white lace and brown burlap card holder — Zigzag the jute cord in place

Step 5 Hanging Cord

I cut a 3.5″ long piece of jute and knotted both ends. Next I sewed each end to the back fo the card holder with a zigzag stitch. I positioned the ends ~ 2″ down from the top and 1/2″ from each short edge.

Closeup of brown jute hanging loop on brown burlap — Sew a length of jute to the back

That’s it! There are only five steps!

Optional – bows

Kristin’s tutorial describes how to make bows to decorate the tops of her card holders. I recommend following her tutorial for making a bow.

Here are some photos of my finished Burlap and Lace Card Holders:

Multicolored greeting cards on the long and short card holders, grey carpet in background — Finished Burlap & Lace Card Holders with cards

Short card holder with multicolored cards hanging on a cream-colored wall — Short card holder hanging on the wall

Long card holder with multicolored cards (centre) and short card holder with multicolored cards (right) hanging on a wall — Long card holder with both landscape and portrait cards

Conclusion

I’m a person who sends greeting cards a few times a year and likes to display the ones that I receive. I switch out older ones for newer ones. This card holder is much more convenient than my previous methods of stapling my cards to a piece of ribbon and displaying a select few cards on furniture.

Do you display greeting cards? If so, what’s your preferred method for doing so? Comment below and/or Pin me for later!

Tanya

Update May 1, 2021:

I like the dowel and hanging loop system from the Hanging Pocket Organizers so much that I decided to upgrade the hanging cord for this project. The additional rigidity of the dowel keeps the top of the Burlap And Lace Card Holder straight. Here’s the new step 5.

Step 5 Hanging Loop

I cut a 2” wide and 4.5” long piece of scrap burlap (lace covered scrap burlap in photo). I folded the short ends over by ~ 3/8” and sewed them with a ¼” seam allowance. Next I folded the strip in half lengthwise with wrong-sides-together and sewed the long edge closed with a ¼” seam allowance.

I placed the fabric tube on the back of my Burlap And Lace Card Holder and aligned the folded edge along the top of the Card Holder. Lastly, I used a zigzag stitch to sew along the raw edge.