For the past five years I have been making my own Christmas cards to send out to family and friends. I enjoy putting my own spin on the traditional and I didn’t want to fall into the cookie cutter family photo and generic message that I found time and time again while perusing templates online. As the years have passed my cards have become more quirky and silly. Every year I look forward to compiling images into a new card design and every year I make sure to include the entire family, chickens and all.
The very first year I sent Christmas cards out was in 2013. Nick and I had been married two and a half years and I decided it was time to start a new Christmas tradition.
My very first card was my most complicated, I made everything by hand then scanned the completed card into the computer before sending it off to be printed. For the base, I collaged old book pages on a 8.5″X11″ sheet of paper. I then printed the words “Merry Christmas” in different fonts onto the collaged paper. Next, I ripped it up and layered it on card stock cut to the size of a postcard. I then printed one of our engagement pictures on a laster printer, and created a Mod Podge transfer of the image. Read the specifics on how to create Mod Podge image transfers here. I wanted the edges of the image to blend into the background, so I matched the color in the picture with colored pencils and scribbled on the edge of the image to blend it out. I then layered ripped up book pages, pieces of the printed image, and discolored paper on the right side of the front to create a space to put text. I did the same on the back of the card to create another space for text. Once the collage was done, I scanned it into the computer. I then used Photoshop to add the words on the front and back.
When my creation was finally complete, I sent them off to a local printer and had them printed out postcard style, with the image on the front and back.
For Christmas 2014, I did more digital editing on the front of the card, while I kept the collaged look on the back. For the back, I once again printed a sheet of paper that had “Merry Christmas” repeated. I glued this to a postcard size base. I then ripped up book pages and off-white paper to create a space for text. Next, I cut out pictures of our two puppies and 4 chickens, a new addition to our household. I glued the cut out images to the back then scanned the image into the computer. Once the image was scanned in, I used Photoshop to add the text.
For the front of the card I used another picture from our engagement photo session. I added the green scribbles using the paintbrush tool in Photoshop. I then scanned in a strip of ripped up book pages with a strip of off-white paper glued on top. I took the image, removed the background, and layered it on top of the green scribbles. I then added the text on top.
Once Christmas 2015 rolled around I decided it was time to move away from the book page collage look and try something new. Both the back and front were completely done using Photoshop.
For the front I simply added text on top of a picture of our newborn son, Cooper. For the back I added text around one edge of our family photograph. I added pictures of our chickens and puppies on the right side, to help balance out the text. For the animal pictures, I used a magnetic lasso to cut them out, then removed the background. If you save a file as a .png, it will keep the background transparent when you add it to another file. It took awhile for me to cut out each animal head, but the end result was worth the time.
Once the images were complete, I send them off to my local printer. I did have an issue with the text being cut off, a hard lesson to learn. For future cards I tried not to put the text so close to the edge.
The Christmas 2016 card is still my favorite to date. I love the simple, yet quirky look. Like my 2015 card, I layered text on top of a picture in Photoshop. For the back, I cropped pictures of all our chickens, dogs, and Cooper to squares and converted them to black and white images. It ended up being the perfect number to fill the space. Our little family grew between 2015 and 2016 from 4 chickens to 11, 2 dogs to 3, while our child count stayed at one. With so many new members of our family to include, it was a bit of a puzzle to work it out. On the right side of the card I included another human only family picture. There was just enough space between the two sections of pictures to include the text.
This year, our family once again grew with the addition of baby girl Kennedy. I love this card mainly because of the amazing Santa picture, thanks to Jeff Roffman. I wanted a picture with Kennedy, Cooper, and Santa on the front, but the picture of Cooper and Santa was too priceless to not include it. I opted to make it the main picture, and added a smaller circle cropped image of sweet Kennedy snoozing with Santa. Needless today, neither child told Santa what they wanted this year. The circle picture and text were both added using Photoshop.
On the back I once again ventured into the world of picture cut outs. I once again used the magnetic lasso tool in Photoshop to remove the background of pictures of all our chickens and pups. I wanted it to look like they were sitting behind Nick, so I layered one version of our family photo in the background, added the animals, then layered another family picture on top, with the background cut out where the animals were placed. I then added a transparent white rectangle on the left and layered text on top.
In addition to Christmas cards, I have also designed my own birthday and shower invitations. I have plans to create a post about all the crafts I did for Cooper’s first birthday. Be on the look out for that in the near future. The bottom image is a shower invitation I designed for my brother and sister-in-law. I created blog posts about a fabric tassel and personalized photo banners I made to decorate for their shower.
Check out my other Christmas crafts below:
Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Thanks for checking out my blog post about my annual Christmas cards. Help me spread the word about Christmas crafts by sharing on your social media site of choice. Thanks for stopping by!
