A Slightly Belated Holiday Card

Between losing my purse (ugh with a capital U!) and getting caught up in holiday festivities–some of which included no internet access visiting the in-laws–I didn’t get my Christmas card blog post up on Christmas Eve.

So here it is, one of my handmade holiday cards for you, belatedly.

Happy Holidays!

Handmade Holiday Cards

I made this star card by combining a photo I took of my tree-topper with one of my own collages that I had scanned in Photoshop.

I then printed it onto Lazertran transfer decal paper, and used turpentine to kind of melt the decal into a square piece of baltic birch.

(I scored a big pile of these wood pieces from a friend who was throwing out his off-cuts from a woodworking project. Moral of the story–always carry a big bag–you never know what treasures you might get to bring home as a potential art supply!)

Finishing Touches

Although I kept the star card above simple, I also edged most of the cards with gold embossing powder and stamped and embossed a simple message on top of the transfer.

This bird ornament card on the left is an example of how I did that. (I also used heat transfer paper on this one rather than the lazertran).

I like using embossing powder in this way–especially to edge things. It a nice finish and it’s a good reminder that you don’t just have to use the embossing powder for stamped images.

The U.S. Mail

I then just treated them all like postcards, and put the address on the back along with a holiday message.

I was a bit relieved that the guy at the post office liked my big pile of wooden postcards (instead of being peeved by the inconvenience), and he put a nice “first class” stamp on the back of each one which we both decided was a nice addition. (You never know who your collaborators might be!)

Giving Yourself Permission

I tend to base my gift/card making actions on what I am in the mood to learn or because I want improve my skills in a particular technique–this is a good motivator for me but I’m not sure I recommend it as a course of action–it can make it a little intense trying to meet the “deadline” of the holiday while also trying to learn/master something new.

This time, though, I learned some handy things about both the heat transferring process (problematic with dark blues on the wood for some reason–those cards got canned) and using turpentine with the Lazertran (temperature really matters, and it might take more than one go with the turp to get the image to really “melt” into the wood.)

Importantly, I also didn’t make myself create a handmade card for everyone on my list, or I’d never have gotten them out. I made sure I bought a few boxes of cards that I thought were great-looking, so I felt good about sending them out as well.

Giving yourself permission in this way can really help–try to make sure you create parameters that allow you to make your ideas implementable (is that a word?) so you can actually do them.

For me, that’s combining my gift-making with learning new things and not making myself responsible for creating something for everyone.

What are your parameters?

If you’re not sure, that’s okay, it’s something to think about.

(ALSO–sometimes we don’t realize we’re creating obstacles instead of parameters and thinking about that difference can be a super useful exercise as well!)

Do you have parameters for your gift making? What permission do you give yourself, or what obstacles do you encounter when you want to make things to give to other people?–please leave a comment or send me an email, I’d love to hear from you!