Chapter 4 - Christmas Cards

Your Own Christmas Cards

If there's anything that brings out the creative urge in us, it's Christmas. Even if we don't bake, or sing, or sew, or paint much during the year, we find ourselves cheerily making cookies, singing carols, running up little gifts on the machine and making Christmas decorations. And as for Christmas cards, well, everyone at some time or another is tempted. Without question, the cards we look at longest, and remember most, and can't bear to throw away, are the cards we receive that friends have made themselves.

A Christmas card with a photograph of our family is usually the first kind of handmade card we think of, and rightly so; it's intimate and unique. No one else can send it, nor would we send it to anyone except warm friends and relatives. It therefore carries with it a mark of affection that is special to itself.

The first thing to do is plan your picture carefully. If you have a fine picture of the family taken one Christmas, it's quite sensible to save it for the following year's cards. The picture has the spontaneity of having been taken at the right moment, and holiday spirit shines out of it. The house is trimmed, the tree is up, and there are unmistakable evidences in the background of the season. For these reasons, it's a good picture to select for your card, and it precludes the necessity of setting the stage for a Christmas picture in November, in time for processing. Where there are young children in the family, however, who grow and change so much in a year (or, even more so, where there is a new member of the family), the good picture from the year before seems outdated, and you'll want to prepare a new one. It's possible, of course, to simulate a holiday picture with decorations or wreaths that are saved from year to year, and arranged to form a background that seems authentic. This kind of picture, when successful, can be very effective. But if you'd rather not pretend that it's Christmas a month ahead of time, snap a good scene of Christmas preparations; the children writing a letter to Santa Claus, everyone in the kitchen making gingerbread cookies, Dad and the children checking strings of tree lights (which are lit) to see if they're ready for the big day.

A snow scene of your house or, in any climate, a shot of your front door wreathed for the holiday, is an excellent idea for a card-picture. Let your photographic imagination guide you, and take a picture that speaks best of your own family life.

Once you have your picture, take the negative to your camera store. If you want a printed card, ask to see samples of photographic printing paper on which holiday messages are already printed. They are designed in such a way as to show your picture to good advantage.

You can order almost any number of these cards, and they are not very expensive.

If you'd rather design your own card, remember the precaution for all handmade cards: buy your envelopes first, as soon as you've determined the size of your card but before you've made any of them. Pretty envelopes for cards come in several standard sizes, and it's easier to make your cards to fit the envelopes you've decided upon than the other way around.

For your own snapshots, a card of folded paper with a cutout window shows them in an interesting way (Figs. A, B, C). Use construction paper, parchment, or fairly stiff gift-wrapping paper (not tissue wrap). Use a razor blade to cut out the window; try different shapes of window to find the one that frames your picture best. The window needn't expose the entire picture: if your picture is a little off center or has uninteresting areas, arrange the window to make it appear centered, or to show only its best features. The window can be round, too; use a compass for this. Make slits to hold the picture, or use hinges.

Simple designs are also very good as the background for a picture. Make a tree shape (page 70) of strips of colored tape (Fig. D). Or daub green finger paint to suggest a wreath on a card with a round cutout (Fig. E).

You have the entire assortment of paints, seals and tapes to choose from in decorating your card, but take care that you do not in your enthusiasm overwhelm your picture with a too-fancy card. The picture itself is precious to your friends and family, so let it stand out.

A folder for your own snapshots

Use colored inks, or silver or gold paint on a fine brush, for your message and signature.

If you're not used to handling a brush, or think that you might have difficulty with one, excellent brush like effects can be obtained easily by using a broad-nibbled pen (the Speedball type, for poster work). To simulate brush strokes in script or lettering, choose one of these pens with a beveled nib. Anyone who can write can be successful with such pens.

Design a simple background for your picture

A beveled nib will simulate brush strokes

Handmade cards with stained-glass windows: doesn't the idea sound beautiful? A truly unusual card can be created by sprinkling shavings of colored crayons between two pieces of waxed paper and then pressing with a warm iron. Use colors separately, with plenty of space between them, and let cool and harden. Cut in sizes to your own design, and paste behind an opening in your card that's cut out in the shape of a Gothic church window. Don't try to manage a representational picture; make a design of pleasing shapes and colors in harmony. The effect of stained glass will convey the church-window concept.

Another material which can be used is the waxed paper in candy boxes, which sometimes comes with a frosted glass effect or with a spider web-like design in it. If such paper has been saved through the year, it would come in handy here for making very unusual "stained glass."

A "stained glass window" card

The card itself, cut out of construction paper in the shape of a Gothic window, can have the simplest message written on it, in white or silver paint.
 
Making Christmas cards shouldn't be reserved for artists and the kindergarten set, although sometimes the rest of us are a little shy about it. We needn't be, because delightful and artistic cards can be made by anyone, even those people who confess that they can't draw a straight line.

The use of interesting materials is one answer. Ferns, for instance, make perfect little Christmas trees. Snip off the fronds from the left side of a fern, leaving the main stem intact to serve as a little lane at the base of the trees. (It is the right side of the fern that you will use, but save the individual left-side fronds; you might use them on other cards, or on place cards for a party.) Glue to a folded parchment card, and stick little gold or silver stars at the tip of each frond.

Fern leaves make little Christmas trees

One pressed fern tip is pretty used as a tree, mounted on a scrap of velvet or a heavy-textured paper. Use it in its original green (Fig. A), decorated with sequins, or spray in white or gold, sprinkle it generously with sequins or glitter, and use a dark-colored velvet for mounting (Fig. B).

Felt and pinking shears can produce striking cards very, very easily. Felt comes in vivid colors and needs no hemming; the pinked edge is attractive and finished-looking.

One very pleasing design is a boot; just one thickness of felt, cut in a boot outline, is all you need to use. Try your own color combinations; one idea is a white book, trimmed with red or gold rickrack and topped with a pipe cleaner candy cane in red and white. Tie the cane with a narrow bit of green ribbon. Attach the cane with a few spots of casein glue, being careful not to use too much or press down too hard, since the glue will soak through and spoil the nap.

Another shape easy to cut in outline is the outline of mittens, which are wintry, Christ-masy, and cute. Make glittery, fancy ones for big girls and bright red ones for little boys and girls; perhaps their initial or name pasted on, in white felt, would add a perfect touch.

A fern tip makes a pretty Christmas tree Use felt to make unusual cards

Felt mittens are attractive cards

Green felt Christmas trees can be brilliant; let the children, who won't want to stop, paste on all the tiny baubles that the tree will hold.

Once everyone gets involved with felt in all its tempting colors, new ideas will just grow out of the cutting. Wreaths, snowmen, fireplaces, chimneys, Santa’s, all are fun and easy. Make vivid poinsettias with yellow sequin centers, or a sweet little angel face made of pink felt for the face, white wings with silver sequins and yellow-fringed felt for the hair.

Green felt Christmas trees make brilliant cards

Almost any design you see that catches your fancy can be simplified enough to be cut out of felt and be pretty as pretty as a Christmas card.

Felt has endless possibilities for cards

Construction paper and pipe cleaners are another happy set of materials for Christmas cards. Follow these designs, making up your own color combinations, and probably before you're through you'll have half a dozen ideas of your own.

Pipe-cleaners can be used in making cards

These are wonderfully simple to do, especi- ally since the pipe cleaners can be bent and rebent until the design is satisfying.

Pipe cleaners can be bought in a wide variety of colors; they can also be dyed to any shade. When they are ready to be attached to the card, use a bit of casein glue here and there. Press down gently, and don't use too much glue, or you will soak the nap of the cleaners and make them less pretty.

Paper, of course, is an old standby for making designs on greeting cards; perhaps you don't realize how many new kinds of paper products are added each year to the supplies in stationery stores and party counters.

Clear a good-sized working space and spread out construction paper in several colors, metal-lie papers, gummed crepe, gummed paper, cellophane tape in colors and in designs, luminous dots, seals, stars and Christmas seals of all kinds. Begin with simple notions and improvise as you go along. Test the look of everything before you stick it down. Use unusual shapes for the card itself, always remembering first to have an envelope that fits.

Since paper is so wonderfully inexpensive as a material, snip and experiment to your heart's content.

A simple card from construction paper

Make a top-fold card from construction paper; cover the front of the card with gummed crepe of another color.

Try three trees of identical size, the two on the outside the same color as each other, the one in the middle different. (They can be cut out all at once so that they are exactly the same in shape.) Sprinkle with dots and stars; cut the front of the folded paper a bit shorter than the back so the card has trim when closed.

Two little gingerbread boys can be cut out of brown gummed crepe, snipped double, like paper dolls, so that they hold hands. Button them down the front with dots, and make their white icing of white gummed crepe. Swing them from the bough of the green crepe evergreen, tied with red gummed crepe,

Gingerbread boys make this card

Paper can do very nearly everything. Make silver-foil bells (cut in many thicknesses, folded like paper dolls) and string them across a deep royal blue card. Letters can be cut from foil or bought, ready made.

Paste vertical strips of red foil on a white card; attach a bright green foil Christmas ball in the center.

Cut out one big green foil tree, or a row of smaller ones; cut canes from red-striped paper; make chimney tops cut from brick-patterned paper. Keep your eyes open for interesting paper, save pieces of gift wrapping paper that are different. And let the children cut and paste without hindrance! They're so much closer to their kindergarten days that they plunge in with a bravado that's worth copying, when you make your own original designs.

Cut out your own original designs

A rich source of decoration for making your own cards are the cards you receive, yourself, other years. We often receive cards we think too pretty to throw away. Designs are often especially appealing for one reason or another; sometimes a painting or etching is reproduced that is a little work of art.

Cut out such beautiful portions of old cards and build a new card of your own around them. Trim in a way that you feel is appropriate and will enhance the cutout. In adding your time and thought to it, you've made something new and made it your own.

Odds and ends from your sewing cabinet can make cards that will be remembered, too. Buttons, ribbons, bias tape and rickrack all lend a nice feel and style to the basic parchment or construction paper card.

When using buttons on a card, place the card in the envelope so that buttons are not in the upper right-hand corner where the cancellation machine will crack them. Better mark on the envelope PLEASE CANCEL BY HAND.

A piece of inch-wide red satin ribbon makes a glowing Christmas candle. The flame is aluminum foil, the leaves are foil, also, jaggedly cut to resemble pine needles or holly.

To make, cut out an 8¼x6 inch piece from gray or green paper. Measure off 3¾ inches on the top and bottom of the long side. Fold. Then measure off another 3¾inches and fold again. This will leave a ¾ inch flap to overlap the folded card.

A candle from satin ribbon

Make the candle from a 3 inch strip of red satin ribbon. Paste down, and add the aluminum foil flame and leaves. Decorate with a few sequins. Print the greeting with black ink on the left side of the card; punctuate i's with sequin dots.

Rickrack makes a modern Christmas tree; you may find that the people who receive it will hang it from the tree or give it first spot in a display it's that sparkly.

Rickrack forms this Christmas tree

From red or yellow paper, cut a strip 9½x6 inches. Fold it in half crosswise. Form the tree with five rows of ½ inch green or yellow rickrack in increasing lengths. Space the rows about ¾ inch apart. Line up colored sequins between the rows so that they seem to hang from the rickrack points. Make the trunk and tip with sequins, too. Write the greeting on the left side of the card; decorate the message with more sequins.

A card that's intended to hang from the tree is this clever Christmas ball; it folds over and becomes its own envelope, too.

A card for hanging on the tree

Start by folding an 8x4 inch strip of black or red paper in half crosswise. Starting at the folded edge, cut out a circle about 4 inches across, leaving about 1 inch on the folded area uncut so that the ornament opens up to two circles without falling apart.
 
From aluminum foil, cut out zigzag and other designs to decorate the tree ball; paste onto the card. Make two tiny holes on the fold and pull a short length of red, green, or yellow yarn through; knot the ends.

A penny tree and a rich snowman, for youngsters

For mailing, the card should be folded with the design and yarn hanger inside. (When received, it will be opened with the design outside, and the yarn hanger will be pulled through the holes, for proper hanging on the tree.)

Print the greeting with white ink, fold and seal.

Here's a card that has the look of luxury, but is actually simple enough for a child to make.

Directions: Cut and fold a card of solid-colored paper. On the front of the card, spread a thick layer of glue in the shape of a bell, a tree, a star, or a wreath. While the glue is still wet, sprinkle on a handful of sequins, enough to completely cover the glued area. (Glass beads or multi-colored confetti can be used in place of the sequins, if you wish.) Set the card aside, and when it is dry, gently shake off any excess sequins. Use colored-paper tape to make a bow for your bell or wreath or a base for your tree, Then write your greeting under the design in a contrasting-colored ink.

A pop-up Christmas tree

Handmade pop-up cards are impressive and make you appear very skilled, yet they're also in the "easy-to-make" category. Color combinations can be your own; work with construction paper, handsome foils, or stiff, gift paper.

Directions: Fold a sheet of paper and cut out a tree shape, either saw-edged, to show branches, or straight-edged, like a tall, stately triangle. Include a simple base for the tree (Fig, A).

Make another tree just like it and then place the folds of the two trees together, joining them from the back with transparent tape. Decorate with gummed stars, sequins, or snips of gummed tape. Again from the back, tape the tree to the center fold of the paper you have chosen for the card itself (Fig. B).

Fold and unfold a few times, to be sure your pop-up is popping easily. Write the message on the front and add, if you like, some paper gifts under the tree, tied up with gummed tape.
Coins stuck on a card for a child will tickle him far more than a ready-made card that costs the same; somehow the shiny pennies given this way take on more value in his eyes than pennies usually have. These cards couldn't be simpler to make, and ideas will come as you work along. They're a happy idea for a child to make for his little friends, too, when there would otherwise be no gift.

Even a child can make this dazzling sequin card

Directions: Supply yourself with brand-new pennies and, if you like, bright new dimes. Use heavy construction paper, in colors that will show off the coppery and silvery colors of the coins. Fold over, so that the message may be written inside. Then just glue on the coins; the penny tree will make itself as you fit the coins together. Finish with paper-tape trunk and base. For the snowman, mount two circles of white construction paper on a bright color; then cut a hat, smiling mouth, and belt from black paper. Glue on pennies for buttons, and perhaps two glittering new dimes for his eyes.

Good Manners In Christmas Cards

Each year we send out Christmas cards to our family, friends, and business associates in what always seems to be a growing number. We sometimes speak of it as a chore: "I haven't sent out my cards yet. I must sit down and do it." Yet essentially, and in our hearts we know it, it is one of the pleasantest chores of the year. It gives us a chance to remember and reach old, old friends, who may be far away and whom we seldom see. School friends, remote members of the family, people we do not correspond with for the rest of the year, all can be shown that we do not forget them and do not want ever to forget them.

New acquaintances and neighbors can be reached, too, with a card, in an opening gesture of friendliness. Often relationships that are tentative are established at Christmas by the sending of a greeting card, for the heart of the matter is that we are saying: "I feel warmly toward you, I have placed you inside my world of people, I wish you well, and I want you to know all this."

And people we know only at work, with whom we have little social contact during the year, can be told in this simple way of our regard and responsiveness to their person.

So when we, with a counterfeit sigh, sit down to send out greeting cards, we are in reality assembling those people who make up our own corner of the world, and offering each the open hand of friendship in the name of the very day that means love and peace among people.

Are there, then, rules for this? There are not any rules which interfere with the spirit of well-wishing, no. But there are rules that implement this spirit, and help us to communicate more perfectly what we wish to imply.

Choose a card, or cards, which reveal you. Do this consciously; take the time to look at many, many cards of all kinds, and select those which say the most to you and which you feel most drawn to. Don't buy cards because they seem fashionable to you, or modern, or for any consideration but your own pleased reaction to them. Don't try to be brilliant or offbeat unless that happens to be your total personality and is exactly what you want to convey.

Choose different groups of cards; you'll probably want to send to friends a different kind of card from the one you send to fellow workers. Cards with the name printed or engraved are entirely correct; as a matter of taste, however, some people feel that only a card signed by hand is proper. There is one rule here, though: printed cards should have printed names, engraved cards engraved names. On either of these, of course, a handwritten signature is correct.

Many people use a Christmas card as a kind of once-a-year letter to those far away, and write a long note on it. All authorities agree that this is perfectly correct to do, a wonderful expression of the true meaning of the season.

Send a card to anyone your feelings urge you to remember; don't stifle any impulse along this line. In most cases it will be a mutual exchange by the automatic fact of friendship, and you needn't say, "Will they be embarrassed if they aren't sending me one?" In that rare case where someone you didn't remember sends a card to you, if there is still time to do so, send a card in return. If there is not time before Christmas, write a note saying thank you for the card, or buy a card which says this. Or send a New Year's card.

Aside from subject matter, let your card in other ways reflect your thoughtfulness. Send it out in plenty of time before the holiday so that it cannot be misconstrued as an afterthought. If you blot the ink or make a messy mistake, discard the envelope or card. Stick the stamp on neatly, squared with the envelope, and not helter-skelter as though you had sent out your cards in a harried, belt-line way. Remember that a sealed envelope with a four cent stamp does seem more gracious than a tucked-in flap, and seal envelopes if you can afford it. Take care that the postage is correct on heavy cards, or cards going to foreign countries, so that no one need pay for it at the other end.

If your cards are hand-signed, and therefore your full name does not appear anywhere on them, by all means put your full name on the envelope with your return address. Your card may be signed "Mary and George" but you have no way of knowing, in most cases, how many other Mary’s and Georges your friend knows; nor of knowing how little he recognizes handwriting. It can be perplexing and vexing in the extreme to receive a card meant to convey good wishes and not be able to tell where they came from.

If you decide to have your cards this year imprinted with your name, first consider the degree of formality or informality you desire. The cards you send to relatives and friends will naturally be in an informal vein, and should be imprinted as follows:

Anne and Mark Carey or The Careys Anne and Mark

It is a matter of personal taste, which name comes first, the man's or woman's.

For business associates, the formal imprint is preferred as follows:

Mr. and Mrs. Mark Carey

Listing each member of the family: Use a comma to separate each individual in the family or use "and" before the last member listed.

The Barkers Alice, Henry, Kathy and Susan or The Barkers Alice, Henry, Kathy, Susan

Order of children's names: Children are listed according to age, regardless of sex.

The single girl: She usually uses the informal style:

Penny Marsh

The single man may use:

Stuart Martin Stu Martin Stuart M. Martin

Use of Jr.: The use of Jr. as an addition to a boy's name is not separated from the boy's name if the boy is mentioned within the series, for example:
Helen, Paul, Anne, Paul Jr., Robert

If the Jr. belongs to the youngest member of the family who is naturally listed last, the boy's first name and the jr. are separated by a comma, as follows:

Helen, Paul, Nancy, Eric and Paul, ]r.

The forming of plurals: Names ending in s add es. Never form the plural of names with an apostrophe s. Family names ending in ch, sh, s or z, add es.

Harsh Church Knox Markowitz Harshes Churches Knoxes Markowitzes

If adding es is not desirable to you or sounds clumsy, use the surname followed by the word "Family."

The Forester Family

To form the plural of all other family names, add s.

The Careys Anne and Mark

Names followed by Jr. or II: The plurals of names followed by Jr, or II may be correctly formed in two ways as shown below. In either case, the first example of each is the preferred use of the plural.

The Mark Careys, Jr.  or  The Mark Carey, Jrs.

The William Fentons, II or The William Fenton, IIs

Engaged couples: It is quite proper that engaged couples jointly send an informal card, imprinted simply Barbara and Jim, etc.

Officers in the Army, Marines, or Air Force use their titles if they hold the grade of Captain or higher. For other grades, "Mr." is preferred. Naval officers use titles with the grade of Lieutenant Commander or higher. Never use both "Mr." and title. It is permissible for noncommissioned officers to use their titles, but "Mr." is generally considered correct.

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