The holiday season can get expensive! Between buying gifts, decorations, wrapping paper, and all those fun seasonal activities, you may find Christmas cards don’t make the budget. The time-honored tradition of giving a creative Christmas card to friends and family as a way to let them know you’re thinking of them has fallen by the wayside in recent years. Purchasing pre-made Christmas cards can be a pricey endeavor, and they often lack any semblance of your families’ personality. Keep the tradition going this year with our simple Christmas tree card ideas! You can make any of these using the supplies you already have in your own home.
Starting Simple: An Easy Hand(made) Christmas Tree Card
We’ve all made the Thanksgiving turkey using our hands, but did you know you can also use your hands to make Christmas trees? This fun family-friendly activity is great for large cards. All you need is card stock, some nontoxic paint, and a child’s hand. Fold your cardstock into a card the size you want to give. A front-and-back postcard is just as good of an option as a folded card! From there, have your little one dip both hands into a shallow dish filled with green paint. They’ll plant their hands, fanned out with thumbs together and pinkies out on the left and right, on the front of the card. This strategy allows their palms to be the center of the tree and their fingers to become the fronds! Let the paint dry and draw on ornaments, a tree base, and a star. You can even switch paint colors and have fingerprints become the ornaments!
Upcycling Household Items into a Christmas Tree Card
One of the best ways to get creative during the holiday season is by making a Christmas card tailored to your families’ personality. No one ever said cards needed to be flat (and boring)! Find small objects related to your families’ interests around the house. Maybe someone is a big sewing fan and has a button collection? Those buttons can be glued onto a hand-drawn or printed Christmas tree card to serve as ornaments! Maybe you are big fans of scrapbooking. Use washi tape or scrapbooking paper to create a one-of-a-kind tree design! The goal of this project is to use small household items to create a 3D Christmas tree card. There’s no limit to what materials you can use, so get creative!
Use Scratch Paper for a One-of-a-Kind Christmas Tree Card
Every household has a surplus of scrap paper around the holidays. Not just from old printing projects collecting dust in your home office, but also from every gift bag, wrapping paper shred, and magazines. Put those scraps to work by transforming them into a Christmas tree! Pick out some paper scraps that you feel suit your personality. If that’s leftover Christmas wrapping paper, use that! Big into fashion? Cut up those extra magazines! You’ll chop your scrap paper into triangles of various sizes. On a piece of cardstock folded to your desired size, glue the largest triangle on the bottom as the base of your tree. Layer triangles of proportionally different sizes on top until you reach a point. Cut a single star out and use it to top your tree.
A Crafting Challenge: Creating a Pop-Up Christmas Tree Card
For advanced crafters (or those just seeking a challenge!), consider making a pop-up Christmas tree card. These Hallmark go-to’s look was a lot harder than they are. You’ll need a single sheet of cardstock, folded in half, an X-Acto knife, and a pencil with an eraser. Open up your folded cardstock to the center. On the centerline, draw a loose outline of a Christmas tree. You want to have outside edges and then lines separating the different layers of the tree. Score the outside edges of your Christmas tree, but don’t cut all the way through. Use your X-Acto knife to cut fully through the paper on the curved part of your tree, where each layer is outlined. Flip the card out and gently press the 3D shape back out. Fold it and flatten it out. When you open up the card, the tree should pop right out!
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