Surprise Your Friends and Family with Handmade Christmas and New Year Cards
The majority of people wait until at least October to begin thinking about Christmas, but not me. That’s because I love Christmas. Though I do admit I’m quite happy to take a break right after the holiday is over; by May I’m ready to give it another go. It’s about that time that I begin scouring the Web for new vintage Christmas clipart to add to my already huge collection. That always helps when I begin designing handmade holiday cards in the autumn. That way I don’t have to search for images when I’m ready to begin; I can just start creating the cards. Since that’s a complicated process, I’m glad to have the images already on my hard drive.
One aspect I do leave until right before Christmas, though, is creating letters from Santa Claus for all the kids I know. These can’t be mailed until late November or early December because they’re sent to the post office at the North Pole for a postmark. After that, they’re mailed to the kids in stamped, addressed envelopes I provide. That process only takes 10 days to a few weeks, so I don’t begin too early. Kids get hyped up enough about Christmas; they don’t need to get letters from Santa before they’ve even had Thanksgiving turkey! But it does bring me joy to see how much they enjoy getting custom letters from Santa. Because I make them myself, I’m able to put in details to make them think Santa really knows them. If they have toys on their Christmas lists, “Santa” names them and tells them that they can have them as long as they’re good. If there’s a lot of figthing between brothers and sisters at the time the letters are mailed, I also say they must get along with everyone in the house if they want their Christmas presents. Nothing like a little pressure from Santa to get kids to behave!
Once my handmade holiday cards and Santa letters are in the mail, I still can’t rest. I always make handmade New Year cards for select friends and family members, as well as an electronic greeting for everyone else. For those I dip into my collection of vintage New Year cards. I get quite elaborate with the handmade versions, since I don’t do that many. They’re a lot of fun to make and I love creating them.
If you’d like to experiment with making your own handmade holiday cards, try these tips:
- Use pre-cut, pre-folded cards from the stationary store, or on the thickest card stock that will go through your printer.
- If your printer will take photo paper, you can print the images separately from the cards, and cut them out and paste them onto the card fronts.
- Lovely specialty and metallic papers are available that you can use to frame the images by cutting pieces slightly larger than the artwork. You can find these at discount stores such as Target, or at craft stores.
- Glitter glue that comes in “pens” work wonders for adding a little shine. But don’t get carried away with it! If you do, the cards will not only look cheesy, they will also warp.
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