DIY Western Christmas Cards: Homemade for the Holidays

I love making my own cards to give to family and friends. Whether the handmade crafts be for a special occasion like Christmas or for a simple "thinking of you" gesture, homemade cards can be awfully special--even if they don't turn out amazing. My cards are nothing spectacular, but the process and end results are still fun.

Personally, I'd much rather work with digital scrapbooking papers/accessories on the computer and simply print out the cards when I'm done. But since some of you may be into good, old-fashioned crafting, I'll address both ways of going about making your own Christmas cards.

Side note: Why Western? If you're making your own Christmas cards anyway, why not try something new? The general ideas are obviously transferrable to any theme, though. Western is simply just an example.

Western Christmas Card Idea: Digital Approach

For digital crafting, I mainly use two programs: (1) GIMP, a free downloadable graphic editor comparable to Adobe Photoshop, for creating and (2) Microsoft PowerPoint for assembling. GIMP can support the whole process; I just prefer using PowerPoint at the end. You can obviously work in whatever program(s) you're comfortable with.

The picture accompanying this article shows exactly what I created digitally. I made the scrapbooking papers and ribbon myself, but you can also download free supplies from sites like ShabbyPrincess.com. I downloaded a free Western font named Pentagon to use for the text, and I found the star graphic in the free symbol font KR Wild West.

I quickly put it together in PowerPoint, selected all the layers, and saved as a .jpg file, which I can then have printed out at a place like FedEx Office (formerly Kinko's). If you want to print your card yourself, you'll just want to situate it correctly on the page and probably print on something like cardstock.

And there you have it: a self-made Christmas card ready to sign and send out. The example obviously isn't jaw-dropping, but you can put as much effort into your creation as you want.

Western Christmas Card Idea: Old-Fashioned, Paper-and-Scissors Approach

With going the non-digital route for Christmas card making, I'd actually take the same general steps. I'd look for cute scrapbooking paper at a craft store like Hobby Lobby and pick up some fun ribbons and corresponding embellishments while there. Then I'd come home and glue everything together with an acid-free glue stick, making sure the cards completely dry before stuffing them into envelopes. Making your own Christmas cards can be as simple or complicated as you want to make it. Have fun!

Sources:

"1001Fonts.com - Free Fonts." 1001Fonts.com.

"Shabby Princess: Free DigiScrap Digital Scrapbooking Downloads." ShabbyPrincess.com.

"What is GIMP: Looking at the Free, Public-Domain Version of Adobe Photoshop." Associated Content.