Copyright (c) 2008 Mike Adams
Christmas should be a wonderful time for your family. But with the fast pace of modern life, it sometimes seems like you just run back and forth between working and Christmas shopping with little opportunity to spend any special time with your family. Often life is so busy you might feel lucky even to get Christmas day off from work!
Making time for family Christmas crafts projects is a great way to make the holidays magical. Making your own Christmas cards can be particularly fun, and it's really quite simple.
There are basically two ways to make your own Christmas cards: the old-fashioned way and the modern way.
In the old fashioned way, you can use construction paper, crayons, paints, and glue to create hand-made Christmas cards. In the modern way, you can create the card on a computer and print it out. You can even buy paper specially designed for printing greeting cards at most office supply stores or online.
Surprisingly, both ways share a great deal in common. After all, a Christmas card is fairly simple. You just need a nice picture for the front and some short, nice text for the inside and perhaps for the cover.
I recommend picking the picture first. The colors in the picture will give you a better idea of what color of paper to use if you are not using white paper. Often the picture you choose will give you the perfect idea for the text.
You can get the pictures from old Christmas cards or from magazines and paste them onto the front of the card. Or your family can draw or paint the pictures. You can even find Christmas graphics online. Whether you are pasting a picture onto construction paper, painting or drawing it, or copying and pasting on a computer screen, a great picture goes a long way to creating a beautiful card. It sets the tone of the card. Do you want a funny card? A religious card? The picture sets the stage.
For the text, you can either write your own greeting or you can borrow a couple lines from Christmas stories like, "Twas The Night Before Christmas." If it's a religious card, you can even borrow a line or two from scriptures. You can have text on the cover of the card with the graphic or you can just have a picture on the front and only have text inside the card. It's totally your choice.
Fun for young and old alike, making your own Christmas cards is easy and it doesn't take long. But the fun in making them and the smile on the face of the person who opens the card will be remembered forever. Whether making your own cards or doing other family Christmas crafts projects, the key is that these family activities create fond memories that last a lifetime.
Mike Adams recommends the
Christmas Graphics Super Pack
as the perfect solution for your Christmas graphics needs. The Christmas Graphics Super Pack contains over 1500 Christmas pictures divided into 22 different categories... over 156 MB's of beautiful Christmas graphics. Check it out:
http://www.christmasgraphicssuperpack.com/
1. Shop online. Don't limit yourself to brick and mortar stores that stock only the most popular holiday designs and themes in order to boost profits. Search the internet and you'll find it is filled with many niche' markets that offer specialized items. There are online stores that sell exclusively Christian products, including Christmas cards, as well as traditional holiday card websites that offer a wide selection of religious Christmas cards.
5. Make it yourself. If you haven't found just the right Christmas card for your family, it's easy to make your own card. First pick a large colorful background using scrapbook paper, wrapping paper or even construction paper. Cut out photos of your family, your children's drawings or pictures from magazines or other sources. On a paper that compliments your background color, write or use your printer to print your message. Arrange all of your elements on the background and when you're happy with their placement, use a glue stick to keep them there. Then to mass-produce them, you have two choices. You can scan the finished product and then print it on your home printer. Or you can use your digital camera and take a photo of it and upload it to a website that will print it for you. This can be a fun holiday project for the whole family.
6. Include your testimony. Whether you send traditional holiday cards or religious Christmas cards, you can include a printed account of how God has touched your life. It doesn't have to be your whole life story to have impact. In fact, you can simply share an example of how God answered a prayer for you this past year. Many people send Christmas newsletters heralding their family's annual accomplishments. Instead, consider letting others know what the Lord has accomplished. You never know whose life it might touch.
