I'm so crafty I kill myself.

It's that time again. Time for egg nog and twinkle lights, decking the halls and kissing under mistletoe. And sending out Christmas missives to those we know and love and those we barely know but went to college with. And what better time to go way overboard on things. Like I did this year on my Christmas cards. And since they've all been mailed out, I can now blog about how they came together.

As a disclaimer, the steps are really truncated, but I wasn't thinking of a tutorial when I did it, I just wanted to sort of show the process.

Step 1: Brainstorm and draw desired image on stamp block, then carve:



Step 2: Stamp white cover paper with glue stamp, sprinkle embossing powder over design, then use heat tool to emboss.



Step 3: Choose quotes for inside of cards, cut quotes and glitter paper to size, affix white cover image to red matchbook paper, fold in quotes and glitter paper and set eyelets.



Step 4: Make envelope liners and glue them into envelopes.


Step 5: Mail and hope people love them.

Despite the fact that I am a total newbie to stamp carving, any type of printing, and embossing, this went pretty smoothly. It was time consuming, but enjoyable. The biggest challenge was that several people were a little confused as to how to open the matchbook, so I think adding some different formats would have been a good idea, but I was just really taken with the matchbook, so I went with it.

I think I'll continue to work on it until I can perfect it a little more, and then possibly sell my wares on Etsy.