Monday, December 10, 2012

Hand-Made Holiday

Sorry for my absence this past week. I've been feverishly crafting away on various holiday gifts, and I'm sure you understand the necessary secrecy involved. That being said, I will share with you the hand-made cards I'll be mailing out soon. They were super simple to create. Even if you can't sew a straight line or knit a stitch, you can handle this craft. Maybe even have the kiddies join in the fun (but let mom handle the hot glue gun, please).

First, let's gather our materials:
Cardstock - I used 8.5"x11" sheets in white
Construction paper - light grey if you wanna copy me
White buttons in varying sizes, preferably with only two holes in the center
Scissors
Glue
Hot glue

Holiday Cards - Materials

Now, we'll fold a piece of cardstock in half width-wise (or hamburger-style, if you had one of those elementary school teachers). Then cut along the fold, and fold each half in half again. So you'll get two cards out of one sheet of cardstock.

Holiday Cards - Step 1

Then tear a square, maybe 3 inches on each side, out of the construction paper. You can cut a precise square if you prefer, but I really liked the raw edge look of torn paper. Glue this onto the front of your card.

Holiday Cards - Step 2

Next, hot glue three buttons on top of the construction paper. I lined up the holes vertically on the two lower buttons, so as to resemble the buttons down the front of a snowman, and made the holes horizontal on the top button to look like eyes.

Holiday Cards - Step 2

Finally, embellish as you like. I used a blue marker to write "Let it snow" at the bottom, but feel free to change it up a bit.

Holiday Cards - Step 3

Now that you've made one card and are happy with the results, you can set up an assembly line that would make Henry Ford proud. Fold, fold, fold. Cut, cut, cut. Glue, glue, glue. I was able to crank out a few dozen of these in only a few minutes... after hours of sifting through my buttons stash, of course.

2 comments:

  1. Ok, silly question--but how did you maintain such a straight line of writing?? These are so cute and love the button stash usage.

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  2. I experimented on another piece of paper until I had something I liked. And then I practiced that some more until I could consistently do it nicely. And even then, there's certainly still some variance among all the cards.

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