Ugly Christmas Sweaters!

I found an idea on Pinterest for "ugly Christmas sweater" gift tags.  Sorry, but I've lost the link to it, so I can't reference it.  But it's very simple.  There was a pattern to print and cut out, but really, it's such a simple shape that it doesn't really need a pattern.  This is a way to use up old Christmas cards.

Here you can see the pattern I used and my tracing marks on a Christmas card.  I really needed to trace on the front, as opposed to the back (where my tracing marks would not be seen) in order to get the "sweater" positioned on the card where I wanted it.  I was just careful to cut out inside the lines.

Here are a couple of the resulting gift tags.  On the back I've simply written "To:" and "From:."  I may punch a hole in the shoulder maybe to attach with a ribbon/string.  Or I may just tape them on a package.

Pretty quick and easy craft to use up some of those pretty cards.

RePurposed Christmas Cards

With Christmas over, I was doing some cleaning up and came across a bundle of Christmas cards we received in 2011.

These Christmas cards were so pretty, and I decided I would keep some of that prettiness to use again.  So I cut out parts of the cards to use as gift tags for next year.

Here are some close-ups.

Cute kittens and silver snowflakes.

Love the one that looks like a quilt in the photo above.

I got out the fancy-edge scissors for some of them.

Now all they need is a hole punched and ribbon or string tied onto them.  

One fortunate thing I found was a card with a nice circle on the front of it.  So I was able to use that to draw circles on the cards and cut out round tags.  It would be fun to use some other shapes, too, wouldn't it.  Like maybe a star or a Santa boot or a stocking.  And I just remembered that I have a tag-shaped punch which I could use, too.   I'll have to remember these ideas for next year!

Christmas Decoration

This may look like an odd assortment of objects to be holding in my hand, but I promise there is a purpose here!

Two years ago I read an idea on the internet for a Christmas decoration which involved dental floss and little round white stickers. The stickers were attached to each other over top of a length of dental floss, then hung in a window. I made several very long rows of these and hung them up. It almost looked like snowflakes falling!

This year I decided to make a variation on this idea. I used last year's Christmas cards and my one-inch circle punch. I really went crazy punching out colorful parts from the cards! Then I used a glue stick to attach them to dental floss. Just randomly spaced, no measuring involved!

Here is the result, hanging on my front door. I simply put a piece of clear tape at the top and another piece at the bottom. I left a little slack in the hanging lines, so that when the door is opened or closed all the little circles wiggle and twirl and sparkle and look pretty!

Card Making

I've been making cards for the last two days. Once I get everything spread out all over the dining room table, I want to make more than just a couple cards! So I go into card-making-factory mode.

I made some more Christmas cards with little triangles of fabric for trees. I did this two years ago. You can see the original post here.

And a few more of this "circle tree" design.

I made a couple other styles of Christmas cards, too, but I'm not going to show them, because I know that SisterStitches will say, "OK now I've seen them, and the surprise is out, so you have to make me a different card!"

Then I made some "every day" cards just to have on hand.

A few different varieties. . .

These blue ones just have different sized squares glued down in a random, overlapping pattern. Makes for very sticky fingers!

Believe it or not, this cool paper was a paper bag that I received at a store. I wadded it up in a ball, then straightened it out again and glued it down. I like the rustic look.

And a couple more of these flower cards, made with silk flowers.

I used up the last of this cool trim that I've had for quite a while. I like that it is so colorful and festive.

All in all, I made 14 every day cards, and 32 Christmas cards. Not bad for two days of work. And we're not talking 8-hour days, you know!

Christmas Crafts E-Book

Remember when I posted this ages ago? It was an idea I had (and produced) for Christmas cards using triangles of green print paper AND green print fabric.

I was very excited recently to be contacted by All Free Christmas Crafts as they wanted to link my little tutorial to their website. In fact, they put my project into an e-book about Christmas crafts. Go here to download this free little e-book with a tutorial by Yours Truly.

I know it's not exactly the big time, not published in physical book form, but it's a start.

I might be making some more of these cards for this year, as well as some matching gift tags. I still have some left over triangles all cut out!

Making Greeting Cards

The other day I spent some time making cards. My supply was very low. It's always a nice change of pace to sit down with glue and paper. Here's what I did.

First some simple cards covered with hand-made paper.

While in an antique shop, I bought some vintage postcards. I thought they looked nice framed with a different hand-made paper.

A few cards made simply with silk flowers that I cut from their weird plastic stems.

And a few Christmas cards. If you are on my list, don't look at this last photo!

News Update and Card Variation

My news update is that both my Christmas Card tutorial and

my Wine Cork Christmas Tree tutorial made it onto

the One Pretty Thing website.

You can see my two contributions here and here.

That's exciting for me! BTW, there are tons of wonderful crafting

ideas on One Pretty Thing, both Christmas-y and other.

I had a comment on my blog post about the Christmas cards from

someone who suggested using magazine pages as a

source of paper for the trees. And that would

work really well, I'd think. Make it a great project for younger

kids, or for a larger group.

That made me think that other materials could be used for cutting

the trees/triangles. Like fabric! Duh, MissesStitches! I am a

quilter after all; I probably have a little

fabric on hand.

So I decided to make a few more cards using fabric triangles.

Here are some fabric triangles that I cut. They are lying on

my paper cutter, which has half-inch squares on it,

so you can see the approximate size.

Since I used a little gold paper to make some brighter trees,

I looked for some gold fabric to use. I know

I have some sparkly gold fabric somewhere, but I couldn't find it.

I found a couple fabrics that are gold-ish,

so they will have to do.

And here are the very small triangles cut out.

This photo shows the front of the card with fabric trees glued down...

and the inside of the card with three small trees.

I really liked using the fabric, as it created texture.

Again, I just used a glue stick to glue them down.

Unlike the paper, when I

applied the glue to the fabric it would sometimes

start to fray the edges a little bit. But I liked that, because it was

like adding pine needles to the trees!

Here's a close-up of one of the cards, where you can see some of

that fraying-edges stuff going on.

And these are the three cards I completed in just a few minutes this morning!

Making Christmas Cards

More Christmas crafting!

Today I'm showing you how I made some super-easy

Christmas cards.

These are the materials needed:

scraps of paper (can be wrapping paper, craft paper,

metallic paper, textured paper, whatever you have--I used mostly

greens, but added a little glitzy gold, too)

*

glue stick (or whatever method you prefer)

*

blank card forms (or make your own from card stock)

*

scissors

Cut the paper randomly into triangle shapes. No pattern needed, just cut various sizes from your paper. Don't worry if not all the shapes are

perfect isosceles triangles;

have you never seen a tree that is a little lop-sided!?!

You can see from

the ruler that most of my bases are somewhere around 1 inch wide.

Now also cut some (not as many) much smaller triangles

(half-inch or smaller at the base).

Here are the "trees" laid out on the front of my card. As you can see,

they are not necessarily centered. I have simply overlapped one tree

on top of the next, varying the heights and sizes of the trees.

The above photo shows the trees glued down. (I guess they are fairly centered,

but that is definitely optional!)

Now to use up those little tiny trees...

I always like to put at least a little something inside the cards I make,

rather than leaving them blank.

So here I glued three little trees down in the corner.

As you can see, there is a lot of flexibility with these cards, and

a lot of room for your own personalization and creativity!