Making Homemade Christmas Cards

Sending homemade Christmas cards is a tradition that more and more families are adopting. One of the main reasons for this is how expensive store-bought cards are becoming.

Also, when you buy cards at a store every year, they all start looking the same after awhile. By making your own homemade Christmas cards you are showing your creativity, and sending something that the recipient will actually want to keep.

One of the biggest problems you are going to have when making handmade cards is just choosing what kind and style you want to make. The possibilities are really endless, and you can make many different homemade Christmas cards with just a few supplies.

Some of the easiest cards to make start with plain cardstock. This can be found in just about any arts and crafts or scrapbooking store. Some of it will be flat, and other packages of it will be pre-folded. If you want to spend less time on the cards, get the pre-folded ones.

Simple Cards

You will need:

• Cardstock
• Nice pen
• Holiday stamp (optional)

If you just want to make very simple Christmas cards, take your cardstock and stamp the front with your holiday stamp. If you have a set of stamps, you can put different ones on different cards so they aren’t all the same.

Then write your message on the inside with a nice pen. Using colored ink can add more festivity to the cards.

If your handwriting is very good, you really don't even have to use a stamp. You could just decorate the front of the card on your own.

Using the Computer

While it is easy to use the computer to create them, handmade cards are much nicer. They convey sentiment in ways that computer-made cards can't do.

But if you have a whole lot of homemade Christmas cards to make, adding a little something with the computer can save you a lot of time. You need to go into a word processing program where you can set the layout to a card shape so that they will print properly. Choose a font that you like, and write out the phrase of your choice. It may take some tweaking to get it just right, but you will be able to put the phrase where you want it on the card, such as along the edge.

Make sure you print one out as a test before you load all your cardstock into the printer and let it go. This way, if something is wrong, you will catch it right away.

Now you have the basis on your decorating on the card, and you can work around it.

Embellishing Your Homemade Christmas Cards

If you want to get fancy with your cards (who doesn't?) there are some terrific embellishments that you can get.

Stamps
Many people use stamps. There are thousands of holiday themed ones that you can get. Some are large and are meant to do your entire card in one stamp. Others are tiny and can be used to fill in spaces. Still others are on wheels, and are meant to be used to create borders on your handmade cards.

Hole Punches
For holiday cards you can get punches that make snowflake shapes, snowmen, stockings and Christmas trees, amongst others. You can use these to punch decorative holes in the card itself, or you can punch them out of contrasting paper and glue them to your homemade Christmas cards.

Brads and Jewels
If you want to add some sparkle to your cards, there are many different jewels that you can get to glue to the outside. You can also get brads if you want to make sure they won't fall off. These have little prongs that actually go through the card which you separate and flatten to keep them in place.

Ribbon, Tinsel and Glitter
Tie little bows made from ribbon and glue them to your card or even stick pieces of tinsel around some of the embellishments to add a festive feel to your homemade Christmas cards. Glitter can also add highlights to various graphics or other adornments and add a crafty feel to your cards.

Distressing

While distressing may not sound like a good thing, it can actually create a great antiquing effect. You will need a sponge that is made to be used with ink, and an ink pad. Brown and rust are some of the most popular colors people use for this, but others can be used as well.

You take the ink sponge and get some ink on it. Then you use little strokes and brush the edges of your homemade Christmas cards from the inside out. This will make the edges very dark and will give the effect of the card being old. This makes unique cards with very little effort.

Send Out Your Handmade Cards

Get some envelopes and decorate them if you like, then send your cards out. Your family and friends are sure to love the cards that will look like you put so much time and effort into.

We hope you like these suggestions for making homemade Christmas cards. We'd love to hear your thoughts if you've made cards for yourself or if you have other tips you want to share.