After gaining the inspiration from my blogging friend, Emily, and following the tutorial she used online, I finally made my very own DIY painted edge business cards—and although I am a tad biased, I think they turned out great.

Like the others recommended, I purchased my business cards on Moo.com and opted for the Luxe Paper, which is perfect for painted edges. The color options on Moo are very standard, and none worked well with my brand. So, I thought a little touch of teal—couldn’t help myself, y’all—on the edges would do the trick.

Supplies // 

2” Clamp—I picked mine up at Home Depot for about $5.
Paint—some recommend paper paint, but I used Martha Stewart acrylic paint in two colors to get the result I wanted and didn’t notice a lapse in quality.*
Sponge Brush
2 Paper Plates

*In the future, I’d probably make my edges more teal-blue than teal-green since that’s how the picture on the front turned out when printed at Moo. But since it’s just the edge painted, the color difference is not noticeable on a single card. If this happens to you, don’t sweat it—we can’t all be Pantone!

Directions // 

Start out by taking a stack of your cards and making sure all the edges line up perfectly—now is the time to channel your inner-OCD self! You’ll lose the front and back card to the paint, but I kept mine for the future batches so I only lost two cards in the process. A word to the wise—if you don’t line them up correctly, you’ll end up losing more than that.

I mixed my paint on a paper plate, and then dabbed off any excess. Then I dabbed the color onto all four edges of my cards. It’s really crucial to use the sponge brush like a sponge so that the paint doesn’t bleed. In addition to the clamp, I also held my cards together while I was painting them so paint couldn’t sneak into the cracks because my super OCD not-so-inner-self came out to play. I painted all four sides of the cards while they were clamped, and just snuck my brush underneath the clamp to get that side.

It’s important to let your paint dry some before unclamping the cards, but you don’t want to give them time to completely set otherwise it will be hard to separate your cards without ruining some. After about twenty minutes mine were dry to the touch, so I pulled them apart and then stacked them back up them to dry overnight.

Come the next morning, voila! You’re ready for your next networking event.