Holidays handmade: Add a personal touch to holiday cards
Stand out from the crowd this Christmas by creating your own holiday greeting cards - a better alternative to same-old, store-bought cards or the dreaded annual newsletter, and much more fun. Whether you want to go high-tech or classic, time-intensive or quick and easy, here are five ideas to get you started:
Joy Card
(from Michaels)
Supplies:
Cardstock: dark blue, light blue
Cuttlebug diecut and embossing machine with D'vine Swirl embossing plate
White ink pad
White embossing powder
Embossing heat tool
Glittered, chipboard alphabet letters
Snowflake stickers
Scissors or paper trimmer
Tape runner
Ruler
Instructions:
Cut dark blue cardstock to 8 by 5 inches and fold in half.
Cut light blue cardstock to 4 by 5 inches and run through Cuttlebug to emboss. Tap white ink pad onto raised surfaces of embossed cardstock. Generously cover with embossing powder and tap off excess. Use heat too to evenly melt powder.
Adhere embossed cardstock, "joy" letters and snowflake stickers to front of card.
Noel card (Michaels)
Supplies:
Bazzill Cardstock, Capers (dark) and Palo Verde (light)
Alphabet stamps for the letters "n,' "o," "e" and 'l'
Ink, cranberry colored
Stamp shaped like a music score
StazOn ink, jet black
Stamp with dot flourishes
Versamark ink pad
Gold embossing powder
Poinsettia embellishment
Red brad (a metal embellishment that connects two pieces of paper)
Directions:
Cut Bazzill Capers (dark green) cardstock to 10.25 by 7 inches and fold in half top to bottom.
Cut a strip of Palo Verde (light green) 3 by 7 inches. Adhere strip of light green to card front 1/2 inch from bottom of card.
Stamp small swirl with Versamark on the left side of the light green cardstock. Generously cover with embossing powder. Use heat gun to melt embossing powder evenly.
Place the clear letters "n," "o," "e" and "l" right-side down onto a piece of scrap paper. Evenly coat the backs of the letters with the cranberry alcohol ink. Set aside to dry.
Once dry turn over and set letters close together.
Stamp music score onto the front side of the clear letters with the black StazOn ink. Let dry.
Adhere letters to the front right side of the card on the light green cardstock.
Layer the poinsettia flower together and fasten with brad. Adhere flower to the right side of card front to the left of the gold flourish.
Computer holiday card
Adobe Photoshop Elements (photo called Adobe holiday card) http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/?promoid=DJDWS
Directions:
From the Welcome Screen, open Photoshop Elements 7's Create section.
Select Photo Collage.
Choose one of the holiday themed templates and click Done.
Drag an image from the Organizer into the template.
Move the image around or adjust the slider to change the size of the image as you see fit.
Add text and play around with text colors, sizes and remember to When ready to print, click on more options and select Order Prints.
***
By the numbers
2.1 billion
Number of Christmas cards sent to friends and loved ones every year, making Christmas the largest card-sending occasion in the United States, according to Hallmark.
30 and counting
The number of years the Madonna and Child have been the theme of the United States Postal Service Christmas stamp, with a new interpretation each year. Stamps celebrating the Muslin holiday Eid, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah are also issued each year.
1962
The year the first official U.S. Christmas stamp was launched, according to the United States Postal Service.
2.17 billion
The number of holiday stamps the Postal Service says it will print this year.
60 percent
Christmas cards account for 60 percent of all seasonal card purchases, making it the biggest card-giving holiday of the year, according to Hallmark.
28
The number of Christmas cards an average household in America will mail out, according to the Greeting Card Association.
TIMELINE
The history of the Christmas card can be dated to 1843 when Sir Henry Cole of London commissioned the first commercial Christmas cards. The cards featured an illustration of a family drinking wine together by John Callcott Horsley. A batch of 1,000 cards was printed, and they sold for a shilling each.
Early Christmas cards often invoked the recipient to think of the approach of spring with illustrations of flowers and fairies rather than today's traditional winter or religious themes. Humorous cards, images of children and animals and elaborate, decorative cards were also popular.
The first "official" Christmas cards began with Queen Victoria in the 1840s.
Christmas cards came to America in 1875 when Louis Prang became the country's first printer of holiday cards.
In the late 1800s, Victorian-style cards were replaced by the Christmas postcard, which were cheaply produced and purchased for about a penny.
The years of World War I brought patriotic themes to Christmas cards.
By the 1920s, cards with envelopes rather than penny postcards again became commonplace.
In 1941, British War Relief produced a card to raise funs to aid child war victims.
Red, white and blue cards with patriotic themes were popular during the U.S. involvement of World War II from 1941 to 1945.
The most famous charity Christmas card, produced by UNICEF, was launched in 1949.
In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first official White House Christmas card.
In 1962, the first U.S. Christmas stamp was issued, featuring a picture of a wreath and candles.
In 1968, Edwin Morgan, a professor of English at Glasgow University, created the first computer-generated Christmas card. It looked like a computer printout with an original Christmas poem.
In 1977 the Apple II is introduced, heralding the age of the personal computer. Computer-savvy individuals have been creating their own Christmas cards ever since.
While people have created handmade Christmas cards since the 1880s, the modern boom in handmade card making can be traced to the 1980s with the launch of paper crafting companies like Keeping Memories Alive and Creative Memories.