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!

I know the feeling. It’s hard to keep it all straight–when to use caulk or gel medium or just water, and then what kinds of prints to use with what transfer technique–black and white copiers vs. laser machines vs. inkjet.

A lot of information online is contradictory as well, and it seems rare that the products dedicated to image transfer actually do what they say they will.

A Good Place To Start

If you’ve never tried, or just never had any luck with image transfers, try an inkjet transparency transfer.

Like all image transfer, it’s hard to get a truly consistent result from piece to piece, but one could argue that’s part of the fun. (In fact, if you want to use image transfer as a technique, you pretty much have to decide it’s part of the fun, or you’ll get frustrated.)

One thing I can promise is that almost all of the ink will transfer to your substrate. Easily (if it’s POROUS that is–meaning something like paper, wood, fabric, etc.)

Yes, easily. Not true of many image transfer techniques.

But you must print on the BACKSIDE of the transparency sheet. Not the correct side according to the manufacturer. The backside won’t dry, which is why it’s so easy to transfer the image.

(Or you can just use a plain piece of acetate, if you have one. You’ll just need a strip of paper on the leading edge of the sheet that allows the printer to “see” the clear plastic piece so it will feed properly.)

The ink on the transparency is so wet that you don’t really need to use any kind of burnisher for the transfer–forget about a bone folder or a coin. In fact, if you do use one, it could ruin the transfer. I just bunched up a soft cloth and used it to rub the back gently and smoothly. A baren might also work well.

Consistency Difficulties

Even though the ink will almost always completely transfer, the end result will still look different depending on the surface you’re working on.

I was working on wood, and was thrilled with my first attempt with the transparency transfer on my test piece, but less excited by my subsequent attempts on a different piece of the same material. That was frustrating–it was the same material!

So the one that looked best (where all the blacks looked black and deep) was done on my “test” piece (which immediately turned into my “real” piece once I was happy with my transfer.)

But before that, when it was still my test piece, I had tried many times, unsuccessfully, to transfer inkjet images from paper onto the wood using Transfer Ink, a Ranger product. (I like a lot of products from that company, but not this one.)

When I tried to repeat that same look, the ink still transferred well, but the effect was not quite as pleasing. More accurate actually, but not as pleasing somehow–the blacks weren’t as deep and dark, and the overall image was less interesting–looking. And the grain of the wood was now competing with the image.

Theories

I wondered if my multiple attempts on the first one had built up some ink and made the surface slightly less porous (but still porous enough to accept the ink), so the color didn’t sink in quite as deeply and fade into the wood. Or maybe the wood was very dry and drank up the ink. Or perhaps the combination of layers of ink with layers of the Transfer Ink “stuff” created the right surface. I don’t know yet.

I’ll keep working on it and let you know. I’d like to provide you with a more fool-proof way to create consistent results with this particular Image Transfer technique.

In the meantime, however, it’s a great starting point if you’ve never tried image transfer, and you should dive right in. Let’s take notes of our efforts and pool our discoveries.

Do you use Image Transfer in your projects? What are your favorite techniques? Would you like to learn more about different kinds of image transfer? Leave a comment and let me know!
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