My Christmas Card Saga

Every year our local calligraphy guild has a potluck and Christmas card exchange at the end of January. And every year, I spend January scrambling for card ideas and trying to get my cards made by the day of the party.

So, guess what I did all January??  :)

Yup, the party was last week, and I barely got the cards ready in time. In other words, business as usual. Oy.

I had such trouble this year coming up with an idea. Oh, who am I kidding? I have trouble coming up with an idea every year! In fact, I had given up making Christmas cards years ago, feeling quite tapped out. Lately I have only been making them for this party, and even then, under great duress.

Stuck for ideas, I decided to use my camera to make copies of my calligraphy. That would help. And then I could glue them onto some pink coverstock paper that I already had. (Yay, it was the right color!) Okay, so far, so good. I even discovered how to easily print 9 photos per page on my computer printer.

So, I printed them out, trimmed them with my exacto knife and metal ruler, and began looking for collage fodder in the right colors. I love to make 3D collage stuff, maybe I could go that route.

I found some stuff that I really wanted to use, some pink and teal tulle, but it didn’t work out for various reasons, so I decided to go with a simpler idea of silver metallic pinstriping. (My middle name should be Simple. Oy.)

I placed the photo on the card and it definitely needed some kind of mat and color behind it, to set it off from the cardstock. But as big as my paper stash is, I couldn’t find any paper the right shade of green. Everything was too yellow-green. Everything except this little scrap of marbled paper from who knows where, which was way too little to use.

I had resigned myself to an unmatted photo that looked horrible, when in the middle of the night, my brain hit upon the idea: scan the marbled paper and print it out onto coverstock! Eureka! I could print as much as I needed! Yay!

After that, it was just a matter of assembling the ingredients.

The metallic silver is pinstriping (self-adhesive, no less!), from an auto parts store.

And for gluing without wrinkling the paper, I used self-adhesive stickers that scrapbookers use.  And I’ve found that using my exacto knife to remove all the backing pieces is the easiest way for me to do that step. Next year, I may just use double-stick tape!

Next year? You mean I need another idea for next year????  :)

To a ridiculously over-abundant wealth of ideas in the future…

XOXO,
Lucky Dog
♥