Day One Christmas Cards ... and a GIVEAWAY!

Welcome back to the Green House on the Hill.  This week Creating Keepsakes is once again graciously allowing me to give a copy of one of their publications to a lucky blog reader.  This week’s issue is all about holidays and celebrations.  Since there are lots of holidays coming up in the next month or so, this is the perfect time to get your hands on a copy of Scrapbooking Holidays & Celebrations.  To get you in the holiday mood, this week I am going to feature some of my favorite holiday cards from over the years. 

Each year, I like to come up with a new design for our family Christmas card.  Some years the card has been very labor intensive!  Some years, it has been almost entirely digital.  One thing I do try to do is to make each card different.  Today’s card is a good cross section of all of the above.  It was labor intensive, a little bit digital and definitely different than anything I had tried before.  If you are familiar with my family, you will realize that this card is a few years old, since there are only two children featured!

The front of the card was made using foam stamps.  The snowflakes came from a set that I bought, but the word JOY is a stamp that I made.  I bought some very thick craft foam (about ¼” thick) at the craft store.  Here is a cross section of the stamp to give you an idea of the thickness. I bought 2 different colors of foam (so you could tell the stamp apart from the foam that I mounted it on).  

I freehanded the letters for the word “JOY” onto the craft foam with a pen and then used an X-acto knife to cut the letters out.  Then I mounted the letters onto the foam with glue.  I dipped the finished stamp into a tray that had a thin layer of paint on the bottom and stamped the image on a blank card front.

A few things that I learned along the way…

It is best to use glue that is waterproof.  Otherwise, the stamp will fall apart the first time you wash it.  Yes, I learned this the hard way! 

Remember to mount the letters so that when you hold the stamp up to a mirror, it reads correctly … I have failed to do that one too!

Now you might have thought that was the labor intensive part, but you would be wrong!  I had to up the degree of difficulty.  I decided to make it a pop up card.  I took a photo of my daughters leaning around a door.  Using photo editing software, I erased everything from the photo except the two girls.  Then I found a holiday door (and wall) in my clipart program.  I placed the two girls over top of the clipart, so they appeared to be peeking around the door.  I left a blank area to the left of the door.  That is where I placed the sentiment.  This photo shows what the inside of the card looks like when laid flat. 

To make them pop up, again out came my trusty X-acto knife.  I cut along the edge of the girls and the door, leaving two tabs about a ½” wide that were used to keep the card together and made the girls and the door pop up. 

And a view from the top so you can see how it works.

To date, I think this was my craziest Christmas card attempt.  My hands were sore for days from carefully cutting out 60 or so cards with an X-acto knife.

Now for my giveaway, to win a copy of Scrapbooking Holidays and Celebrations, please leave me a comment by 12 noon EST, Friday, November 18^th on this post.  I will randomly select one of the names on the afternoon of the 18th to win a copy.  You can see a sneak peek of the issue here!