DIY Felt Christmas Cards

If you ever met me in real life there’s one thing you’d learn about me really quickly. I rarely –  if ever – wear anything in bright colours or patterns. In fact there was a quote that my friend posted this week on her Instagram feed that read “I’ll stop wearing black when they make a darker color”.

That’s me.

So I found it pretty ironic that when I was making my header collage for my Facebook page, that it was this giant, vibrant, happy, cheerful montage of insanely colourful projects I had done over the past year. I stared at it and the potential project photos for it and thought “This is me? What the hell is going on?”

I had a rainbow party, colourful stripes and bright vivid shades of everything. And our accent colour in our home is red. I painted the back of my front door red yet there’s still a 50/50 chance you could get me to wear a red tank top on Canada Day.

Why am I telling you this story? Because the Christmas cards I just made for this year are like the anti-thesis of my wardrobe and personality. Ask any of my long time friends. Bright and cheerful are not adjectives usually used to describe me. Loud, pragmatic and wears a lot of shades. That works. The only thing that’s colourful is possibly my language.

I am sure there is a very good psychological explanation to this enigma. Or maybe I just live vicariously through (read: prefer to defer the attention) to my crafts and home decor projects. I’m going with that one.

But I must say, out of all the crafts I do all year round, Christmas cards are my absolute favourite craft of the year so I really go all out for them. In which case I am so not apologizing for these no matter how bright they are.

Here’s what’s going out in the mail this week:

For all the contemporary Christmas colour loving people.

And for all you classic Christmas colour loving people.

So here’s how this went down.

First I gathered up a billion sheets of felt.

After I decided on my colour schemes I went to town with several ideas of different patterns and themes.

Here are some tips if you’d like to make some for yourself.

TIP # 1

When you’re doing multiples of the same pattern card, make one really good stencil (so to speak) then just lay the strips or shapes over new pieces of felt and trim to match. Way easier than doing each card individually.

TIP #2

Always, always, ALWAYS lay out your pattern on your card before you glue it on to make sure it fits.

I just use a simple glue stick to glue the felt on.

No really. I put the glue directly on the back of the felt shapes and attach them onto the card stock. Nothing fancy required.

TIP # 3

For anything with letters do the following:

1) Buy the good thick felt or you will wind up cursing the not so stiff felt when you’re cutting out the letters.

2) Trace your letters (unless you’re super at free hand cutting) backwards. Because you want your pencil marks on the backside not the front.

3) Use nail clipper scissors with a rounded tip to help cut the insides of the letters more easily.

4) Or you can just skip the above and buy felt stickers.

 TIP # 4 

Cookie cutters make excellent stencils!

And you’re done!

Now that they’re done, I still have to go get my photos printed to put inside of them. If they’re fashionably late, they’re still made with love!

And a crafting injury after spending hours hunched over my kitchen table making them which led to a pulled muscle in my lower back. Probably a first.

Happy card making!