I’ve been making my own holiday cards for as long as I can remember; it started out as a creative outlet to the mass-produced alternative and has now become one of the things I enjoy most about the holiday season!
I always tend to wait until the weather changes and it actually feels like the holidays before coming up with my designs; I just can’t seem to get into the headspace earlier in the year – at least not for my personal holiday cards.
For this year’s cards, I really wanted to evoke the beauty that surrounds me out here in the country and I’ve been playing around with watercolours and so I came up with this simple, but beautifully effective design and I thought it would be lovely to share with you.
If you don’t already have watercolour cards, they’re quite easy to get at any good quality craft shop or you can make your own easily enough using watercolour cardstock. I used A2 cards, but you can choose whichever size you’d like.
I wanted to try to capture the misty, ethereal landscape that I often see out of my window every morning in the winter, so I kept my pallet quite muted. I mixed three shades of grey and tested them out first to make sure I was happy with them. I mixed enough to create 50 cards (I send a lot of them!)
Lightly brush the card with water and then simply play with the colours to get your desired effect. I did an ombre sort of thing by applying a line of graduating colour (from light to dark and top to bottom); then I lightly brushed a clean brush from left to right blending the colours to get the results above. But, really, the sky’s the limit, and playing around (on a blank sheet, of course!) can really create some interesting and unique results… happy accidents are never wrong!
Now, I happened to letterpress my muted greeting of “Holiday Moments” to evoke that misty feeling some more, but you can easily create your own holiday message with a rubber stamp or beautiful handlettering.
I also made some coordinating envelopes using a book of scrapbook paper that I had lying around just to give them a little bit of extra glam. That way, your recipients will know that they’re about to open something special!
And there you have it – a fairly simply, but effective handmade card!
Do you make your own holiday cards? We would love to see them & hear about your holiday card traditions!
