It's been a couple of years since I've had time to make my own Christmas cards - at least. This year I had a week off work in November to use up annual leave and spent most of the week tackling tasks around the house, but I did allow myself one whole day to do fun things - and spent a good part of that day making cards.
I've mentioned before that I got a great discount on a three-month subscription to three different card making magazines. Each one comes with free gifts and as it was getting close to the end of the year, the freebies tended to be for making Christmas cards.
This one, Cardmaking & Papercraft, came with a selectin of foil-finished cardboard pictures, frames and toppers. I thought it was a bit boring to start with - other free gifts have included rubber stamps and decoupage sets - but actually when you are making Christmas cards you often want something that won't take too long. Plus, the pictures were lovely and have resulted in some of my favourite Christmas cards that I've made so far.
I copied the suggested designs in the magazine which were very good - I like this first one most of all. I used a piece of backing paper to cover a square white card blank, then stuck a pink sparkly frame at an angle. Using the largest reindeer card topper I stuck it on the front of the card and tucked a couple of corners through the frame - I love this effect. Then I cut small pieces of border pieces and stuck them across the four corners of the card. Finally I used a small circular card topper in the corner of the reindeer picture, and a sentiment topper across the bottom.
This second card is more of a clean and simple design, again taken from an idea in the magazine. I covered a square white card blank with a piece of light purple paper that had a Christmas bauble design down one side, and stuck a border topper a few centimetres up from the bottom.
I used another large reindeer card topper again at an angle in the middle of the card, and a Christmas wishes sentiment tag to the left. I think the tag looks a bit odd on its own and in retrospect maybe needed some ribbon but I still quite like the card as it is.
Even if you enjoy card making as much as me, it can be really hard to find time to make cards. As I only managed to make a few, and had already bought some cards I wanted to specifically send this year (they have cows on, perfect now I'm married and Mrs Cowe!) so have decided to keep hold of these until next year!
I've just come across a website called Paperless Post which provides both online and printed cards (as well as other stationery) which is donating to
(RED), the charity which partners with retailers to send money to the Global Fund that fights HIV and AIDS.
Each purchase from the
(PAPERLESS POST)REDChristmas collection supports (RED)’s fight for a world without AIDS. 8% of the price of every paper card and 25% of the price of every online card goes to the charity, which I think is a good thing for them to do, so I'm happy to help publicise the campaign (and have received no incentive or compensation for doing so).
