Make Photo Christmas Cards

Photo Christmas cards are a popular item during the holiday season. You can usually order a postcard of sorts from a photo kiosk or CVS or wherever. These postcards are pretty generic although. They get hung on the fridge or displayed on the mantel and then thrown away a few weeks after the holiday season. So why not design and make your own handmade photo Christmas cards?! People love home made gifts! Besides you can make them so much more interesting than the ones you order from the photo kiosk. Make a photo greeting card that is sure to stick around and find a home in a scrapbook or photo album, or forever on the mantel or fridge.
Hey, Here's an idea! why not add magnets to the back? This guarantees a spot on the fridge for a very long time!

Materials needed to make your own photo Christmas cards:
card stock
photo prints
personal paper cutter
Holiday themed embellishments or stickers
or
holiday themed paper punches

Step One: Create cards as a base for the card. I used a 12" by 12" piece of colored cardstock (this size is commonly sold as scrapbooking paper). Using a personal sliding paper cutter I cut the pieces into quarters to create 4 cards measuring 6" by 6".

Step Two: Get you photos ready. If the photos you are using are perfect as they are to go straight onto the cards than you can skip this step. Otherwise using your personal paper cutter crop the edges of the photo you intend to use so that the photo will:
A. fit from top to bottom onto the card without overlapping the decorative border on the card (photo should measure 4 3/4" tall at very most).
B. the photo will appear the most pleasing to the eye by cropping out unneeded background and such to feature only the star of the photo.

Step Three: Next hop onto the computer to create the colored border and "Merry Christmas" for the photo Christmas cards. To do this use either desktop publishing software or a word processing program to create the border and text. Open a new document and set the page dimensions for 6" by 6" with a 1/2" margin on all sides. Using the box making tool create a border all the way around the page using the margins as a guide. Afterward go back and change the border to your liking - making the line thicker or thinner and change the color.
The text for the card should be centered between the border line (1/2" in from the right side of the card) and the photo. Place the photo over the card where you intend to attach it and measure the distance between the photo and the border. You will now need to create a column to fit your text into and center it.
Or if this step seems a bit like a big pain in the butt you can make photo Christmas cards the easy way by downloading a printable template for $1.00 with a colored border of your choice by going here

Step Four: Choosing decoratives. For my photo Christmas cards I chose to go with a snowflake theme. I used snowflake paper sticker embellishments mainly because not only were they beautiful looking they also came ready made with sticker paper on the back. All I had to do was peel and stick! To save money I could have easily made my own decorations using a paper punch or ribbons and bows or glitter or whatever. Get creative and you can easily come up with some great ideas. Some other great ideas could be to create little Christmas trees using green paper cut into little triangles. Add a star to the top using a paper punch and glue glitter to the star. You could punch tiny bulbs out with a circular paper punch. Use shiny paper to give it a little extra sumthin'. Don't stop with that idea. You could create little stockings, gifts boxes, snowmen... keep the ideas coming!

Step Five: Assemble it! Now just put it all together! Start by attaching the photo to the front of the card. You could use photo corners to do this so the recipient could take the photo out and then put it in an album or frame it. I like to use an adhesive runner to attach the photo. These are great tools as you need very little glue to keep the picture stuck for a very long time. There is no mess and you will not get any of the warping you may get with other glues.
Once the photo is attached if you want you can go over the decorative border with some glitter glue or sparkly pens. This is completely optional of course. I used a sparkly blue pen and ruler to trace lightly over the border just to make it stand out a little more. For the very last step you will attach your decorative embellishments to the right hand corners of the Christmas photo cards. Viola! You've got beautiful Christmas photo cards that are made with love and look a little bit craftier (is that a word? :) and those you send them too will LOVE THEM!

More tips to make your own Photo Christmas Cards...

* Glue some magnets to the back of these cards to create a keepsake with a permanent home on the fridge.

* For the best effect try to match the colors of your photo cards to the colors in the actual photo. It makes a world of difference.

* A cute accent for the card is to attach a bow and ribbon to the photo only so that it looks like it is attached to the card with the bow.

See Also...

Printable postcard template for sending postcards without an envelope

Make unique Christmas party invitations

Make your own "jingle bell" Christmas cards

go from Photo Christmas Cards
back to Make Greetings Cards page