The Story of Two Christmas Cards

Every year, I say I'm not going to do Christmas cards anymore! We get fewer & fewer every year and there are so many E-cards now. But then, every year, I just can't go without making Christmas cards! I still love sending & receiving them. Maybe you're in the same dilemma or perhaps not, but I want to share with you how I made my cards this year.

This first one is a hybrid card. That is, partly digital on the computer and part the traditional paper crafting. This is by far the easiest of the two I'm showing you today. This is what it looks like.

Hybrid Christmas Card

And here's how I made it.....

Step 1: I simply printed the digital art background, from my computer, onto metallic paper to give the card an extra special glimmer. (You don't have to use metallic paper.) The beautiful Christmas paper was designed by the fabulous Nancie Rowe Janitz. Here is the link to the her  Altered Holiday Backgrounds Pack. These are 8.5 x 11 but I scaled mine down.

Step 2: I also printed the black & white striped paper by the talented Heidi Swapp. This paper was part of the {Mo}tography class offered last month at Jessica Sprague.

Step 3: I used a piece of rose-colored cardstock, cut to 8.5 x 5.5 and then folded in half. This fits into an A2 envelope.

Step 4: I used a tape runner to adhere the black & white paper to the cardstock.

Step 5: I misted some plain ribbon with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist and scrunched it up. I let it dry scrunched.

Step 6: I wrapped the ribbon around the art background paper and adhered it with Crystal Accents. The I used a tape runner to adhere to the black & white paper.

Step 7: I simply added a pearl accent from Hero Arts using the same Crystal Accents.

***Craft supplies are readily available at most crafting stores.

Here's a photo the basic supplies I used to make this card.

Basic supplies

Now, here is the more complicated card I made digitally with CS5.

Front

Back

And here's how I made it.....

Card Front-
Step 1: I created a new 5.127 x 7.127 new document in Photoshop CS5. This is a 5 x 7 card with an extra bleed added so that nothing would be cut off from the edges.

Step 2: I used the custom shape tool to create the tree and then added a stroke outline and drop shadow.

Step 3: I used 2 digital papers on the background layer. I set the top paper layer to multiply and lowered the opacity to 60%.

Step 4: I used washi tapes as templates and clipping masks for all the patterned paper pieces inside the tree shape. I resized all of them to similar sizes. This is the part that took the longest but was well worth the time spent.

Step 5: I added a lot of brushes, all set in white. This created all the layers of snow and snowflakes.

Step 6: Finally, I added the gifts, buttons, word art strips, word art, the stars and string of lights. I added a stroke outline to  the gifts as well as a drop shadow. I added a glow of light just behind the starts at the top of the tree. As with any brush, I played with the opacity and blending modes!

Card Back-
Step 1: I opened another new document sized the same as the front.

Step 2: I placed a digital paper on the background layer.

Step 3: I added a digital element and added my type layer.

Printed Card-
I used Scrapping Simply and had my 5 x 7 flat cards printed on their pearl lustre paper. They have a template for back-to-back printing and they also will include the envelopes. They turned out just beautiful!

***For the complete list of the digital supplies I used, please click here.

So for at least another year, I did make Christmas cards and thoroughly enjoyed the process. I do hope some will appear in my mailbox too! Read: mailbox, not inbox!