Easy Ideas For Handmade Christmas Cards

Design Team Member Kate here with you today! If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I donate hundreds of cards per year to various charities.  I also mail out about 100 personal Christmas cards every December, so I need LOTS of holiday cards!  Follow along with me as I share some tips to make big batches of cards. And if you want to start donating cards yourself, be sure and check out the blog post I did sharing a list of charities that accept handmade cards.

Begin by choosing a design that you can realistically replicate quickly. That means don't choose a design with 20 layers. I usually pick a design and have a color scheme in mind, but often in the course of making the first card, I think of other color combos. I started this crafting session with the gold card in mind, then tried some other colors.

I love the look of thick letters on a card front, so to achieve this look I have a little hack. I cut one layer from foil and then a second identical layer from white cardstock. When you adhere these together it creates a thick letter layer that looks like chipboard letters. 

In the red and green cards, I used a matching color of cardstock instead of white for the additional layer. (I used swatch book scraps!)

Utilize little pockets of time by working in batches. I stamped all the cards at once and cut all the diecuts at one time. It's overwhelming to sit down and create 100 handmade cards, start to finish, but if you break up tasks it goes quickly. 

Die cutting so many letters and snowflakes means lots of little pieces. I use inexpensive makeup organizers from the Dollar Store to keep things organized and sorted.

Once everything is cut, it’s just a matter of assembly. I used a straight edge to line up the letters. 

Then added the snowflake to the center and a glitter cardstock heart (I like the contrast of specialty papers). I adhered the design directly to my white card base for simplicity sake, but you can easily use a colored cardstock layer if you want to change things up. 

I put the unused “o”s from the word JOY to good use making a quick holiday card!  I NEVER throw out extra diecuts.  I always try to make a one-off card with leftovers.

• Encore Mirror Foil in California Gold, Emerald City, Red Currant
• Bazzill Smoothies in Fig Swirl
• Glitter cardstock scraps
• Sirio Ultra Black 104C
• Die from MFT Stamps

-Kate

@katedeignancards