Christmas Card Craft Ideas
There are two basic sources for Christmas card craft ideas. Well, three actually. There's a third—crafty—card idea alternative that I haven't seen referenced in the books or on most websites…but more about that in a little bit.
First, there are many books that offer hundreds of Christmas card craft ideas. Some of the good card crafting book titles include:
- The Complete Practical Guide to Card-Making
- Designing Handcrafted Cards
- Quick & Clever Handmade Cards
- Creating Cards with Scrapbook Embellishments
The second spot to reference holiday card craft ideas is the Web. There are myriads of sites that offer tips on scrap-booking, making cut-outs, using stamps, and other embellishments.
Two Websites for Christmas Card Craft Ideas
- PaperSource.com (Holiday Cards)
- ArchiversOnline.com (Ideas > Cards and Invitations)
Here's the problem with the above Christmas card craft idea sources, as I see it. You have to have special card stock, stamps, ink pads, stencils, cutting tools, adhesives and more.
If you have the time (and money) to go out and get these items at your local craft store, fine. But, if you just want to create some clever Christmas cards to send to friends and family without all the time and expense, you'll need another option. That brings me to the third source of Christmas card craft ideas: graphics and illustration software.
Alternative Christmas Card Craft Idea
What I use is, Xara Xtreme (you can download a 30 day free trial here) and some matte photo printer paper which can be printed on both sides. The software comes with some card templates that make placing your digital photos and trimming to size really easy.
Here's what I'm doing this year: 1st, take a picture of the Christmas tree after it is decorated. That photo goes on the front of the card. Next, take a photo of the family, import it into the project (open Xara file) and resize it so that it will fit inside the open Christmas card.
Now, print out the card and the family photo separately. Fold and cut the card to create the mount for the cut-out (see instructions at wikiHow). Trim around the family photo to make a cut-out so that it will fit inside the card. When glued (or double-sided taped) inside the card, it will pop up when opened. Fun and easy.