Tis the season! It’s a shame Christmas only lasts one day, should be a week-long holiday! This has probably been one of my busiest Christmas’s because I’ve been putting together little handmade Christmas creations for everybody ^_^.

I really wanted to push myself to make something more challenging then my usual cards so they would be really special. I was inspired to make pop-up cards and gift tags after seeing lovely work like this Kylie Minogue pop-up book. I started researching and discovered there are lots of great sites out there on making pop-up cards from basic folds to very complex creations. I also did some experimenting myself to see what I could come up with and decided to use 2 relatively easy to make pop-up patterns.

Christmas Cards

The design for this card was inspired by a snowflake pop-up I saw on Youtube, only mine would be a lot simpler implementing an X-form in the middle of the card.

The snowflake pattern is based off a design I found online which I chose because of the middle was not too detailed and would hold together. The snowflakes themselves took ages to cut out but they looked really lovely once they were finished and stuck into the card.

Because the folds holding the snowflake into the card were visible on the outside, I had to print a separate sheet with the front artwork to stick over the other. It took me a while to work out and design what I wanted but I finally settled on a simplistic typeface with some pattern work incorported into the letters (they look like snowflakes!). I also added some silver spots around the letters as well to match the inside of the card.

When I finished I felt the cards still looked a little bare. It was then that I got the idea to tie a Christmas ribbon around the middle. I used some of my leftover present ribbon (from kikki.k) and voila, the cards looked much better! 😀

I’m really proud with how these cards turned out. I worked really hard over a couple of days to get these cards together and I hope the people who receive them really like them ^_^.

Christmas Gift Tags

I carried across the pop-up style to my present gift tags with small snowflakes on the front. I also did a second design based off this simple Christmas tree tutorial.

And that’s a wrap! Making cards throughout the year has been a great little project for me and I’ve had fun challenging myself to come up with new designs for each one. Hopefully I can keep pushing myself to create new ideas for next year’s celebrations. For the time being I’m taking a couple of weeks break so I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ^_^!