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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
Just a little reminder as we head into the holidays: please don’t forget LC this year! We enjoy this place for all the fun swaps, inspirational craftalongs, and incredible inspirations. We have formed some lasting and amazing friendships. And we have done it cost-free. Please think about giving to show your support and love for this great community! Let’s keep Craftalongs going for years to come!
Another idea: take a picture to use as your background and add text digitally.
With cut off remnants of cotton yarn I made several projects.
In one of them I used the yarn as kind of a loose border. I tried several backgrounds, but liked grey crafting paper the best.
The first card I made this way was pandemic-themed:
(It has its own thread, if you’re looking for the translation.)
Cards on that site (RedBubble) are 10 x15 cm (4 x 6 inch), so I took those measurements into account when I made my drawing.
I added a white border around the drawing, to avoid part of the drawing being accidentally cut off at the printer’s (I’ve had that happen in the past).
