Our Christmastime and a Simple Christmas Card Design

Christmas is one of the most wonderful times of the year, with parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting, and caroling out in the snow...I think might be a song in there somewhere. I also wanted to share a special Christmas card design I've been using this year!

An interesting historical fact about Christmas trees is that the tradition started when
people wanted to spruce things up a bit.

Before Christmas, Esther and I always conduct our yearly inspection of those Christmas gifts that mysteriously start appearing by the tree. For some reason, our mom never brings down our gifts until Christmas morning, but there are always plenty of other gifts from friends.

Our Christmas Day was just the four of us, although we visited my aunt the day after Christmas. Christmas Eve and Christmas morning are always some of my favorite parts of the day, because that's when we open our gifts! On Christmas Eve, we open gifts from our friends, and a few early presents from each other, and on Christmas morning, we open the rest of the gifts from each other. Some of my gifts this year included fuzzy socks, a handmade Grumpy Cat blanket, oil pastels, and quilting supplies! Yellow, orange, and light green fabrics are ones I never have enough of when I'm making brightly colored quilts, so I got a stack of fat quarters of each of those colors.

We didn't have a white Christmas, as those are pretty rare in Northern Virginia, but we did have a windy Christmas. Our power didn't go out though, which was good for our turkey roasting in the oven. Of course, dinner was amazing, because it's food, and food is amazing. For as long as I can remember, my family has been having Christmas "dinner" around 2:00 in the afternoon. (This tradition started when we would have our grandparents over for holiday dinners, and they, being elderly people, didn't want to go all afternoon without eating but also didn't want to spoil their appetites by eating a snack.) For dinner this year, we had turkey, mashed potatoes, and my mom's green bean casserole. There were plenty of dishes to wash afterwards without adding anything else like gravy, applesauce, or cranberry sauce!

I love making greeting cards, and this year, I decided to send handmade Christmas cards to some of our friends. For this design, you can mostly use scraps of decorative paper you probably already have sitting around.

You will need:

8.5" x 11" cardstock in red/green and white

3 different patterns of Christmas paper (can use scraps)

Scraps of ribbon

Glue (I love Glue Dots for these kinds of projects!)

Paper trimmer and scissors

Steps:

To make the cards themselves, cut your 8.5" x 11" red or green sheet of cardstock in half the short way with your paper trimmer, and fold each piece in half. Each full-size sheet of paper will make two cards, each measuring 5.5" x 8.5" (or 5.5" x 4.75" when folded).

Referring to the picture, cut out the shapes for the gift boxes, edges of the boxes, and the gift tag. The gift tag is simply a rectangle with a triangle cut out of the bottom, and I hand lettered "Merry Christmas" on the front.

Glue the shapes on the front of the card, starting with the gift box at the bottom and then adding the middle and top gift boxes. Glue the ribbon down the middle of the box stack. After gluing the gift tag on, tie a bow from another length of ribbon and glue it to the very top of the stack.

As a finishing touch, I like to cut a piece of white cardstock measuring 3.75" x 4.5" for the inside of the card. This adds a more "professional" look and helps the writing stand out against the card.

That's it! This design could also be modified to be used as a birthday card if you used different colors and gift tags.

Do you have any special Christmas traditions? What Christmas crafts have you made this season?