Holiday Cards (Ideas) Craftalong

[madebyBeaG (in 🇧🇪 (from 🇳🇱) 🌎)]

If you are LOOKING FOR IDEAS for making or designing your own HOLIDAY CARDS (all end of year holidays), look no further!

This is the place where LC members will share pictures of Holiday Cards THEY MADE (in the past or recently) and invite you to BE INSPIRED BY THEM.

They might give you advice on how to make your own versions (the materials and techniques they used).

The cards shown here MUST BE MADE BY THE MEMBER WHO POSTS THEM, either of their own design, or of a design taken from a public place (website, craft magazine) with permission to share.
(Don’t just take any design of the internet. You will need the maker’s permission to reproduce and share it.)

The designs can be either:

1. Completely hand crafted (if you made multiples, you made them all by hand).

2. A photograph or scan of something you made (printed by you or a third party).

3. A photograph or a digital design (printed by you or a third party).

If you share your pictures here, it means you’re okay with other members copying your design or being inspired by your design.

Let’s share ideas!

[madebyBeaG (in 🇧🇪 (from 🇳🇱) 🌎)]

Okay, let me kick it off then.

A long time ago I made these cards with felt and glass sead beads:

And a variation of them, with small (white, see-through and mother of pearl) buttons:

First I cut the Christmas trees out of felt.

I started with making a template.
I folded a piece of paper in half en drew half of the tree at the folded side, so that when I cut it out I had a tree that was the same at both sides.
I then traced the outlines of the tree from the thin paper onto a piece of recycled cardboard, for instance from a cereal box, and cut that out.
Now I had a template that I could use over and over again, to trace the trees on the backside of the felt, using a pencil or a ballpoint pen.
Then I cut out the felt trees.

I glued the felt trees to the blank cards.
You can use paper glue, craft glue or sticky tape.

I then cut out small squares for the tree trunks (probably also with the help of a little template, since I’m a perfectionist, lol) and glued those on the cards too.
I waited until the glue had dried.

Then I sewed on the beads or the buttons, with a sewing needle and sewing thread.
Poke little holes from the front, so you know where to stick your needle through at the back.
And keeping every little bead or button in place with a fine double knot at the back.

I didn’t make big knots on the backside of the (front of a double) card, but instead stuck the ends of the sewing thread down with either adhesive tape or small paper stickers.
Optional: you can cover this backside with a piece of paper.

Then I stuck on the (store bought) stickers.
‘Prettige Feestdagen’ means ‘Happy Holidays’ in Dutch,
and ‘Gelukkig Nieuwjaar’ means ‘Happy New Year’.

I chose matching red envelopes.

Enjoy!

[jellybean (Jamie (she/her) 🇺🇸 🏳‍🌈)]

I had these made a few years ago:

They weren’t anything special, I just used shutterfly to add a snowflake border to a picture of my cat with ‘Happy Holidays’ & our names (under the envelope).

This year, I have a santa costume for her to wear if I can convince her to sit still long enough for a picture.

[AntBee (Jen)]

This is a craftalong with @ceep ’s name written all over it lol
And @TheMistressT is no slouch at card making, either.

I, however, am. Lol I often have intentions of greatness but in my current season of life getting anything done in a timely fashion is reason for ticker tape parades and mayoral speeches of praise.

I look forward to ogling the contributions here!

[ceep (Carol)]

@AntBee Maybe a little bit :).

A lot of my cards are already posted here. I maybe will do a combo of pictures and links.

[ceep (Carol)]

Years and years of holiday cards.

I now refer to these as the “group A” cards. They go to family and close friends, because there’s often some sort of “in joke” or connection to events of the year.

The “group B” cards go to my Lenora Mattingly Weber online bookclub. They generally refer to an event in the books (B is for Beany and Belford)

The “group C” cards are some interesting design that has no specific meaning. These go mostly to my husband’s work group, my parent volunteers at my school, and a few people I’ve known for a long time but no longer are in close touch.

The newest one is “group D”, a group of ONE. This is a special card for my daughter’s fiance’s mom. D is for “Dylan’s mom”.

Phew, I’m going to leave this post as the “group A” link and post others separately.

[ceep (Carol)]

Some of my “C” cards. These are either ideas that didn’t work for the “A” cards, or other interesting designs I’ve collected.

Slotted/sliceform Tree

Faux Stained Glass

Angled Sliceform Tree

Incire Tree

Ornament Window Pop Up

Paperdoll Santa and Mrs. Claus

Skaters Snowglobe

Hawaiian Quilt

Zig Zag Pile of Presents

Zig Zig Trees

Christmas Village

[ceep (Carol)]

Some of my “B” cards.

I only have to make a dozen of so of these, for a card exchange within my online book group.

Swing Card

Incire Ornament

Gingerbread House Pop Up

This was a in-process photo with the prototype house. I can’t find a photo of the finished card.

Stockings

Run-together Cookies

3D Trees

Groovy Aluminum Tree

[ceep (Carol)]

These are one of a kind “D” cards for my daughter’s soon-to-be mother-in-law.

Embroidered Card

Woven Heart Pocket

[madebyBeaG (in 🇧🇪 (from 🇳🇱) 🌎)]

Another time I made more complicated cards with felt: red robins.

I found the original picture on a postcard.
Again I used discarded cardboard to make (tiny) templates for all the felt parts.
Except for the little circles: I cut those out wit a perforator (the red berries are felt, the eyes are paper). I glued all pieces to the cards with white craft glue.
I drew the birds legs with a fine marker.

I cut the branches out of wallpaper samples (glued those on first) and I did some embroidering on the holly leaves before I glued them on. The white in the eyes is a tiny dot of paint and I made the beaks out of paper
As you might have noticed, it isn’t always a good idea to trace your pattern pieces onto felt with a ballpoint pen…

Enjoy!

[megwell (Megan (she/her))]

I made some holiday sweater cards for an LC swap last year.

Paper, paint, a bit of stamping — these were really fun to make.

[madebyBeaG (in 🇧🇪 (from 🇳🇱) 🌎)]

Linen Snowmen:

I used two types of linen: a natural one and a colored one.
Again, I first made templates out of recycled cardboard.
This time I first glued a double sided sticky sheet to the back of the fabric (peeling of the plastic side, not the paper side!), drew around the templates (on the paper side), cut out the pieces, removed the paper and stuck them to the card.
I then sewed on little buttons on their bellies and little black sead beads for their mouths.
I had some small jewelry parts, consisting of orange glass stones in a metal setting, and I sewed those on for noses.
I drew the eyes with a black marker.

Enjoy!

[madebyBeaG (in 🇧🇪 (from 🇳🇱) 🌎)]

Of course handmade cards don’t always have to be complicated nor take a lot of time to make.

With the same natural linen and double sided sticky sheet, plus some old brown/metallic ribbon, I made these holiday cards.

Enjoy!

[Cindy]

Last year I doodled my cards, for these ones I traced circles and filled them with different designs. Then I added hangers to make them look like ornaments

This is another doodle, I cut out the empty space between the ‘flowers’ and glued a shiny paper behind the design, I also added bead stickers in the flower centres.

[madebyBeaG (in 🇧🇪 (from 🇳🇱) 🌎)]

Cards made from recycled paper: tearing up old magazines and junk mail.

For these cards, I tore colorful pieces of paper out of old magazines and other junk mail.
I glued strips of similar colors onto pieces of printing paper, using paper glue.
Then I cut out shapes (christmas trees). I glued those shapes onto another piece of printing paper and cut the shape out a second time, this time leaving a small white border around the original shape. This way it stands out nicely against the background.

I’ve used this technique for all kinds of cards and art, not just holiday cards.
It works nice for silhouette types of shapes.
If you use sturdy white paper for the second layer (the one that gives you the white border), you can use your shapes stand alone, for instance as ornaments.

Enjoy!

[madebyBeaG (in 🇧🇪 (from 🇳🇱) 🌎)]

More christmas trees cards, this time from free wallpaper samples:

You could of course use other shapes (like baubles or reindeer or snowflakes).

Tip: build up a collection of recycled cardboard templates to be reused again and again for your cards.

Enjoy!

[madebyBeaG (in 🇧🇪 (from 🇳🇱) 🌎)]

One year I made Swedish Heart cards, that doubled as ornaments.

I found a pattern online (Swedish Hearts are folklore and have been made for hundreds of years, so no worries about copyrights).

I made them out of sturdy white and red crafting paper and I used paper glue for securing the ends of the woven strips.
I then glued another layer of the white paper on the back, so I could write on them.
Then I punched a small hole in the top and attached a cotton thread loop.

Enjoy!

[madebyBeaG (in 🇧🇪 (from 🇳🇱) 🌎)]

I used to make all our holiday cards by hand. But we always send out a lot of cards an my hands hurt too much for that nowadays.
These were the last holidays cards I made by hand in a large amount:

As you can see, they had a simple design.
I had a lot of very pretty sturdy crafting paper and I made these cards in six different color combinations.

I made two templates out of recycled cardboard for two sizes of baubles, including the hanging part. I also made two tiny templates for the hanging parts.
I used those to make the baubles en glued the little part on top of them.
Then I glued the baubles onto white crafting paper and cut them out again, leaving a small white border around them.
I used a Pritt paper glue stick.

I also cut a rectangular template for the backgrounds, cut out the backgrounds, glued them onto white crafting paper and cut them out again, this time leaving a small white border.
I glued them onto the cards first.

I then stuck baking twine to the back of the baubles with adhesive tape.
Then I used those little foam squares for 3D-cards, that are sticky on both sided, to glue the baubles to the cards. And I cut off the pieces of bakers twine and stuck them to the back with adhesive tape.
I completed the cards by sticking on a store bought ‘Happy New Year’ sticker.

Enjoy!

[Immaculata]

All these ideas are very inspirational! I’m not really a natural papercrafter, but I’m trying to improve because papercraft can look so good, and there’s such a variety of ideas that can be tried.

We’ll probably have lots of wallpaper left over from our DIY project, so I’ll save those scraps. I’m sure I should be able to cut simple shapes from them and glue them to card blanks.

@madebyBeaG those gold-coloured stickers remind me of my grandma! I inherited them from her, she bought them in bulk so more than 20 years after her death I still have some left. She wasn’t an easy person to get along with and not a particularly nice grandma, but her Christmas cards were amazing. She cross-stitched more than 100 Christmas cards every year. I still have a few of them.

[madebyBeaG (in 🇧🇪 (from 🇳🇱) 🌎)]

When I was no longer able to make this many cards by hand, I decided to each year take a picture of something I made and then have my cards printed (by a third party).

Since I had lots of pictures of holiday items I made in the past, I picked a picture from my stash for several years.

Felt ornaments:

Little heart onrnaments:

‘Santa Mouse’ (from my family of retired computer mice, on a green felt background):

And crocheted snowballs:

Maybe you too have pictures of things you created for the holidays in the past, that would make for a nice holiday card.

Enjoy!