Best of Associated Content: Christmas Card and Holiday Card Exchange Ideas

In reviewing a lucky 13 Associated Content writeups on how to create our own original Christmas cards or holiday cards, this writer found enough ideas to potentially stay occupied for days upon days. Each author has offered excellent Christmas card exchange ideas, if we prefer options other than grabbing a box of Christmas cards or holiday cards at a department store.

Kids first. Printable Christmas Cards for Kids from Stacy Hensley gives us so many choices, we could have ten kids and each would have a different choice! Stacy, a self-described SAHM, has limited her personal self to three offspring, no doubt for sanity's sake. Parents will gain from Stacy's advice because she shows not only how to do the printing, but how to guide the children so that they still are contributing their own creative ideas.

What's really neat about Christmas Cards: Handmade from Pam Thomas is that she truly cuts to the chase. First, Pam notes that year after year, her family's contains fewer and fewer cards. That's the evidence! Pam speculates that the reason for going homemade is not only to save $$$ in our sour economy, but because store-bought cards can seem so impersonal. Also, her how-to guidance is perfect for the klutzes among us.

Not to say that saving $$$ isn't important, and Associated Content readers are treated to three samplings on how to recycle last year's cards:

-- CJ Mathis in Homemade Christmas Cards from Last Year's Cards explains that no, we don't take last year's cards and sent them back to people (lol), but instead we take the time to cut out the illustrations and glue them to new card paper in creative ways, while we incorporate holiday sayings and slogans, and so forth.

-- Maryanne Smith in How to Recycle Your Christmas Cards explains how we can create framed art and collages, sophisticated enough to help decorate our homes. Maryanne's fantastic tips go far beyond recycling.

-- Daniella Nicole in Recycling Christmas Cards: Create Coasters, Place Mats, Bookmarks, More finds just the right word for these ideas: Not just "recycle," but "upcycle." Daniella shows us how to upcycle in 11 different ways. Since I'm a grandparent, Daniella's storyboard idea really caught my eye.

With Make Your Own 1950s Style Retro Christmas Cards, Susi Frock demonstrates how to produce homemade holiday cards "that would make Lucy or Wally Cleaver proud." Can't we just imagine ditzy Lucy trying to operate a computer? But Susi's instructions are so clear and well-written, maybe even Lucy (or yours truly) could do it.

However, if we aren't the DIY types, Jenn C. in Great Places to Find Vintage or Retro Christmas Cards Online shows us how to let the Web do the Work for us. If you wish to find the website with 16,561 vintage or retro Christmas card choices, then go look up Jenn's writeup.

In Homemade Photo Christmas Cards Made Simple from Angie Marcum, I really appreciated her sensitive qualifying phrase, "Depending on your computer skill level ... " Thanks for treating me with such sensitivity, Angie.

Ideas from Shawbelt in Tips For Making Homemade Christmas Cards include faking a photo of our family riding a whale, and then sending it to Grandma. Shawbelt prods, "How's that for personality and a laugh? Warning: you might get confused phone calls from grandma." Uh, readers, you be the judges on that one!

How about Western? We have Make Your Own Western Style Christmas Cards from Linda Louise Johnson and Handy Do it Yourself Printable Western Christmas Cards from Sheri Fresonke Harper. We're tempted to ask, "Linda Louise, and Sheri, what would you two know about Western style Christmas cards, you're from Fishers, Indiana, and Winter Springs, Florida, respectively, for God's sake." Just teasing: Both of these excellent writeups on how to prepare Western style cards are totally precise, and the ladies will love Linda's tips for bright red cowboy boots.

Speaking of love, when I viewed the headline DIY Romantic and Elegant Christmas Cards: Make it Easy with Free Digital Scrapbooking Pages, my first reaction was, who better to post this piece than an author bearing the name of Elizabeth Valentine? However, Elizabeth then explains in her preface that she prefers describing her card creations as "elegant" but that the Associated Content assignment asked for "romantic," so she placed both adjectives in her headline. C'mon, Elizabeth, you're an AC Clout 8, a powerful Clout 8, so if you say elegant, then elegant it is! Bottom line is that Elizabeth gives excellent advice, and she even shows us a holiday card that she has produced.

Meanwhile, ShawnTe Pierce definitely captures our hearts in DIY Romantic Christmas Cards Using MS Word, in part because of her musical selections. One of two cards that ShawnTe shows us how to make includes Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas," an all-time fave. In fact, let's close by hyperlinking the great Donny Hathaway: Hang/ all/ the MIS-tle-toe ....

SOURCES

Thirteen Outstanding Associated Contributors