Kids Crafts: Bubble Wrap Printed Christmas Cards

I’ve been playing around with some printing techniques I learned recently and together with my son we’ve made some fun Christmas cards with bubble wrap which are just a bit different to the usual. These Bubble Wrap Printed Christmas Cards are simple to do, but really look the part.

A little while ago I went to a gelatine monotype printing workshop with my friend Sarah at Crafts and Makes in Didsbury. The workshop was run by John Pinder and he taught us some basic printing techniques. I really enjoyed the workshop, but I’ve not yet had the time to make a gelatine plate to print on.

At the workshop we played about printing with different textures. One thing I especially liked was bubble wrap, it makes such a pretty pattern that I knew I could create something similar at home with some poster paint and blank card. The results are pretty good and would be good fun for kids to do in the run up to Christmas. Imagine Uncle David’s face when he opens his Christmas card to see this masterpiece?

These Bubble Wrap Printed Christmas Cards are really simple to do, you might need to help/supervise/stop smaller children painting their faces/walls/the cat, but you probably do that anyway when you do crafts.

Bubble Wrap Printed Christmas Cards

You will need:

Some blank greetings cards
Bubble wrap
Thick cardboard
Selection of post paints
A paintbrush

How to make your Bubble Wrap Printed Christmas Cards:

Firstly, put newspaper down on the table you’re using, this could get messy. Cut a piece of bubble wrap to the size of the front of your greetings card. Squirt a blob of whatever paint colour you want for your background onto a plate and using the paintbrush apply an even layer of paint all over the bubbly side of the bubble wrap.

Kids Crafts: Bubble Wrap Printed Christmas Cards

Carefully lay the painted side of the bubble wrap onto the card and press it down all over. Peel it back, there will be enough paint on it to print another one or two cards. Ideally, leave the cards to dry before printing the next stage. Mine took about 20 minutes.

While you’re waiting for your cards to dry, take your thick cardboard and draw some simple festive shapes. I did a wonky star and a Christmas Tree. Cut out your cardboard templates. Once your bubble wrap background is dry, liberally cover one side of your Christmas shapes with paint. Press the painted side of your shape on the front of the card, carefully removing it so the edge don’t smudge too much.

To print the next card you’ll need to add more paint to the shape. Leave your cards to dry. If you feel it needs it, you could touch up the shape with some extra paint. Leave them to dry properly, maybe overnight, and then write them and send them to your favourite person.

If you enjoyed this, you might also like to try making –

Kids Crafts: Bubble Wrap Printed Christmas Cards

Having a handmade Christmas – Christmas Ink Stamps

The keen-eyed amongst you will have noted that this year I’ve decided to make my own Christmas cards. It’s something I’m doing because it’s a bit nicer to get a handmade card, it’ll save us a few pennies and it’s just a nice calming thing to do of an evening.

To give my cards the final finishing touch I have had a couple of ink stamps made up by Stamptastic. The first stamp is for cards and other handmade gifts and says “Lovingly handmade by the Arschavir Family”, and the other, which is for gift tags and such like says “To…Merry Christmas love from The Arschavir Family”.

Each stamp costs £15, which if you make a lot of handmade cards and gifts will be well worth it. The stamps themselves have lovely crisp detailing and are nice and chunky to hold and stamp with.

I am planning to buy some brown parcel labels and stamp those with the gift tag stamp, I always find gift tags a bit faffy but essential and I think the stamp will give a good finish to a nicely wrapped gift.

The ink pads come in a range of colours and cost just £3.50, and will last a long time, only needing a little spritz with water if they start to dry out a little.

Christmas Ink Stamps

The stamps came from Stamptastic who have an online shop with everything you need for your personalised ink stamps, the designs are crisp, attractive and interesting. They have quite a few different Christmas designs to choose from, so if you enjoy crafting, or want to save yourself the hassle of writing out gift tags, or need an attractive address stamp or similar, have a look at what Stamptastic have to offer.

I’m really pleased with my ink stamps and I think they give my Christmas cards and gifts the final flourish they deserve.

Note: I was given the stamps and ink pads free of charge for review purposes. All images and opinions are my own.

Crafts: Make Your Own Christmas Cards

I don’t know about you, but I almost weep at the cost of Christmas cards. I’m sure that and the cost of postage are one of the reasons why fewer people seem to be sending cards. In a attempt to cut some costs, and impressed by the handmade cards we were sent last year, I was determined to try my hand and make your own Christmas cards.

Back in September I visited the Brookside Garden Centre near Poynton in Cheshire, while I was there I popped into their craft shop. The shops stocks lots of docrafts products, knowing I already had some bits and pieces at home I just bought the few extra things I needed to make the cards. It’s a lovely craft shop and worth visiting if you’re in the area.

For my cards I used:
Red and Green Christmas Cards and envelopes (pack of 25)
Red Button & Ribbon Pack
Folk Christmas A4 Double Sided Paper Pack
Folk Christmas Linen Sticker Sheet Pack
A tube of Tacky Glue 60mls

The above items cost £13.95 in total for 25 Christmas cards, although there is plenty of paper and other bits and pieces left to make more cards than that. These cards cost approximately 56p each to make, plus my time.

make your own Christmas cards

My plan was fairly simple, use the Folk Christmas paper, cut it into squares, stick it onto the Christmas cards and decorate with the stickers, ribbons and buttons. Once I got started I realised what a difference the ribbons and buttons made, and slightly regretted not buying a bigger selection.

make your own christmas cards

I played about with different designs and colours and I think one or two of the cards I’ve made are pretty good really, so I’ll be using the better ones as templates for the rest of my pack.

I really love the look of the Folk Christmas range, it’s full of hand drawn traditional style Christmas illustrations and sentiments in contemporary colours. The 32 pack of papers features 16 different designs to use for card making.

make your own christmas cards

docrafts card making supplies are available from a large range of retailers and specialist craft shops. Homemade cards are always nice to receive because you know people have put their time and love into making them.

Note: We were sent the Folk Christmas Papers and Stickers free of charge for review purposes. I purchased the other items myself and all images and opinions are our own.

Christmas Cards from Made with Love

I hold my hands up. I’m one of those people who sits down for a couple of evenings in mid-November and writes all her Christmas cards. I like sending cards and putting little personal notes in for the friends and family I’ve not seen in a while. I like that it’s a little gesture that says that we’ve thought about someone. Often the boys go out hand delivering cards to friends and neighbours, they love doing this as they tend to get invited in for cups of tea and pieces of cake.

The sending of cards is a tradition I will continue to firmly uphold. Though it can be a fairly costly business, buying stamps these days is really quite expensive, especially if like us you post around 50 cards each Christmas. I’m also a bit picky about my Christmas cards, I really hate flimsy cheap Christmas cards, buying budget doesn’t need to mean bad, really bad quality. Anyway, I appear to have digressed.

I’ve recently been sent a small selection of cards from the Made with Love Christmas card range to have a look at and review. They sent me the Christmas Star card (£3.50) and the Tartan Reindeer card (£4.50). They are really good quality cards, made from recycled material, well printed and produced in the UK.

You can easily arrange for them to be printed with a personalised message for example “with love from the Smith family” too. All cards from Made with Love are available in multi-packs.

These Christmas cards are for me a little expensive to send in great numbers, but I tend to buy nicer, special cards for family and friends who don’t fall into the uncle and aunt categories, so I’d send these slightly more expensive, considerably more special cards to them, especially if I’d personalised them from our family.

I like the modern designs from Made with Love, they’re nicely different, they’ve got a lovely concept and I particularly like that they are a UK product. Well worth checking out if you want something different and a bit special.

Note: I was sent four cards free of charge for review purposes, all opinions and images are my own.