Handmade Holiday Cards: Tips For Your Season's Greetings

Decorated Card in Cello Sleeve

Simple Touches for Elegant Cards

Whether you are making your holiday cards entirely from scratch, or embellishing store bought cards, here are a few tips for you to get creative!

Economy Holiday Card

1) You can use store bought greeting cards to decorate if you don't have enough time to make your own entirely from scratch. Craft stores also sell blank cards with matching envelopes.

2) If you are using inexpensive holiday cards to embellish, splurge on high quality vellum or invitation envelopes to make your cards look uber luxurious. The ones below are from Wrapworks on Etsy.

Fancy envelopes from Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/wrapworks

3) They don't have to be "Christmas" cards, these days you can find a variety of rubber stamps, stickers, and decorative cutouts for Jewish, Pagan, and any other religious denomination. Of course, there are plenty of secular winter theme decorations, too. This means you can personalize your greeting for your friends and family or various faiths.

4) Use unmounted rubber alphabet stamps on a mounting block to hand stamp personalized greetings. Whether it is a Christmas message specifically for someone cherished or a holiday message that is not traditional, spell out your message on an acrylic stamping block and break out the ink. Look in the scrapbooking isle at your local craft store and making "Happy Winter Solstice, May the Goddess Bless You" or "Merry Christmas, David" cards is as easy as one, two, three!

5) Get a variety of materials to decorate your cards. Glitter, foil, embossing powder, chipboard cutouts, stickers, ribbon, buttons and more, will make your cards dazzle. Try to keep them 1/4 inch thick when in the envelope and not exceeding 1/2 oz. You may have to pay more to mail them. Take them to the post office to be weighed before mailing, just to make sure you don't need extra postage.

6) Use cellophane bags for your cards before sliding them in the envelopes if you used glitter. This will prevent a mess.

7) Buy the new USPS "forever stamps" for card mailing. That way, if you have extra, they will always be good for first class mail.

8) Order plenty of address labels before you mail your cards. You don't want to address them all by hand and they come in handy all year round.