I enjoy making different kinds of crafts and projects. With the holidays coming around, what better craft than Christmas cards? "Spread the cheer this year with seasonal salutations you make yourself" (Wasinger, 99). Making things by hand allows you to not only express your creativity, but it is also a good opportunity for you to give someone a meaningful item that you put time and thought into. The book, Artful Christmas: 30 Elegant Craft Projects, contained many craft ideas that helped me add more joy to the holidays.
This project focused on using different patterned and card stock paper, as well as scissors, glue, and other supplies, to create cards with various Christmas tree designs. The main goal was to snip little strips of paper and glue them in differing patterns to create unique trees. The book contained several ideas for the card design, including a vertical and horizontal Christmas tree.
For the vertical tree, I was supposed to "cut all of the paper strips to the same length to fit the height of [the] card" (Wasinger, 101). Then, I had to glue them to create the outer edges of the tree and work my way to the center. I attempted to place the strips evenly and glue them as proportionately as I could, but the end product did not look as good as I would have liked.
However, with more practice and patience, I was able to create a slightly better card. I continued using the book's instructions and suggestions, but instead of cutting my own paper strips, I used different patterns of tape. This way, I could make sure that each strip was exactly the same width, so the tree would definitely be more even.
For the horizontal tree, the book suggested cutting eight or nine strips of patterned paper in varying widths and slightly varying lengths and placing them from the bottom up, one strip at a time (Wasinger, 101). I tried this method and it worked well enough, although the book didn't specify exactly how big the strips should be. But, this was a good start and I improved in the next few cards I made, both with the card's appearance and in my efficiency in making them.
In my opinion, the vertical Christmas tree was harder than the horizontal one because the book was not as specific in describing the lengths of the strips and the position in which I should glue them. Also, I was able to use more patterns of paper in the horizontal tree, while I was limited to only a few patterns in the vertical tree, because the number of strips I could use in each one depended on the height or width of the paper.
All in all, through a simple, creative, and fun craft idea, I was able to create various Christmas card designs that not only were enjoyable to make, but also will spread holiday cheer and show the people who receive these cards how much time and effort I put into them and how much I care about them.
Would you be willing to use these methods to make your own Christmas cards? Which Christmas tree design was better, the vertical tree or the horizontal tree?
Wasinger, Susan. Artful Christmas: 30 Elegant Craft Projects. Lark, 2014.
