Christmas Cards with Holly
2 Ideas using Sea Glass

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It's that time of year again when we start to think and plan our Christmas celebrations for the year.
Part of the preparation is the all important Christmas card list. Who are we sending cards to this year?

Is the list up to date, are there more people to add to it? 

Sadly, it seems to have become more acceptable to just send a 'cyber' greeting these days. 

How about trying your hand at making some good, old fashioned, easy homemade Christmas cards. On this page you will learn how to make homemade Christmas greeting cards using your own sea glass that you collected during the year.

Turn those little treasures into Christmas Holly, add your very own personal touch using one or more of your family photos. What a wonderful surprise for your family and friends to find one of your unique Christmas handmade diy cards in their letterbox this year.

There are 2 Christmas cards with holly ideas here on this page. Both to send to your family and friends and one idea that you can modify to make some very special gift tags for those special people in your life. 

Oh, you say, you don't have any of your own sea glass! No problem there. You can purchase bulk sea glass online but be cautious that you are not buying fake, man made sea glass - yes, you can actually make it yourself. If this isn't a concern to you, then using it is fine as it will do the job nicely.

For the projects below, we will be using genuine southern shores sea glass found on beaches on the south coast of Australia.

Idea No' 1 - Christmas Cards with Holly - Use One of Your Own Photos

• Photo
• Backing Card
• Envelope
• A4 adhesive photo copying paper
• Printer
• Sea Glass  - green
• Red beads, glass, wooden, plastic or aluminium
• Scissors
• Glue

• Choose the photo that you want to work with. There are instructions on how to print your photos using the A4 adhesive photo copy paper on Special Beach Card page on this website, here. Rather than duplicate the instructions, just pop over there and follow the method.

In this instance, there have been 4 photos printed on the one A4 photo copying paper. These will make 4 awesome handmade Christmas cards with Holly for family or friends.

Original photo to use for the Christmas holly card creation

A4 adhesive photo copying paper for Christmas Holly Card

• Select the pieces of green sea glass that you will use for 3 leaves of holly. Choose pieces that are relatively triangular in shape. You can see from the photos that some pieces of sea glass don't quite meet that criteria but with a little gentle persuasion and rearranging, each piece seems to fit nicely into a three leafed stem of Christmas holly.
• Make sure that they will sit well on the photo card, you can do this before you cut the A4 sheet into individual photos.

Sorting sea glass pieces for holly shapes

Choosing Sea Glass shapes for the Holly Christmas Card

• Either with scissors or with a guillotine, trim the photos down to the size that will fit onto the backing card.  The photo will look good if you leave a small border around it so as to frame the picture. Trim the photo to the size that you would like.
• Regarding the backing card, it's up to you what you use however make sure that it is card stock or sturdy enough to take the weight of the sea glass. The picture shows card dimensions of 14.8 cm x 10.5 cm, this seems to be a good size for an envelope with dimensions of 16.2 cm x 11.4 cm. Note that the envelope needs to be large enough to accommodate the extra depth created by the sea glass addition. 

Trimming the photo images for the individual Christmas holly cards

Dimensions for the Christmas Holly Card

• Slowly peel the adhesive from the back of the photo, about 2 cms and fold the backing paper flat. Turn the photo over and very gently lay it down onto the card noting the positioning is even and straight. Take the backing paper between your fingers with one hand and then gently pull it away from the photo and at the same time, smoothing the photo down onto the card. 
  Press down securely so that there are no air bubbles and make sure that the edges are secured.

Peeling adhesive backing off the photo

Carefully adhere photo to the Christmas Holly card

• Now that the photo is adhered to the card, you can glue the 3 pieces of green sea glass into position.
• Time now to add the little red beads.
  Here's a fun suggestion. Next time you are out and about, why not drop into the thrift shop and check out what old beaded jewelry they have for sale. These glass beads came from a necklace that was broken and perfect for this Christmas cards with Holly project. The little red berries came up a treat!

Adhered the photos to the Holly Christmas cards

Glass beads for the Holly Christmas Card

What an easy greeting card for Christmas and the thing is that you can use any number of photos for this card. Know anyone who would like to receive a card like this in the mail? This also makes an excellent and easy Christmas card crafts for kids project. Their Grandparents would love to receive a card with memories of their exciting sea glass collecting adventures.

Sea Glass holly on the Christmas photo card

Idea No' 2 - Christmas Cards with Holly - Simply Stamped!

With this second idea you are going to be doing what is termed layering. This is an easy process that gives your card a unique style and you can use your imagination as to what you use for the layers. In this example an old music sheet of paper and some hessian ribbon have been used to give the cards a rustic, country feel.

• Card stock
• Layering fabric - material swag, wide ribbon or hessian ribbon
• Old book paper or music paper
• Glue
• Scissors
• Sea Glass
  
• Red Beads - glass, wooden, plastic or aluminium
• Stamp and Stamp pad
• Gilders wax (optional)

• Prepare your layering materials. tear the paper layer irregularly as this adds to the design appeal.
• With the ribbon, fray the edges slightly to give it some character.

Layering materials for the Christmas Holly card

• Glue the 2 components onto the card and arrange as you like. Don't overcrowd the card, keep it simple and uncluttered. Perhaps, instead of hessian as has been used here, you might like to use a wide tartan ribbon or gold bow
• Another idea is to make the layers first by stapling them together before you put them onto the card. These are commonly termed clusters by the Junk Journaling crowd.

Layering the Christmas Holly Card

Adding the sea glass and bead to the Christmas Holly card

• Glue the sea glass holly leaves into place and add the little red berries. The berry component here, is a glass bead re-cycled from an old broken necklace found inn a local thrift/opportunity shop. Great places to find little treasures that can be used in your craft work.
• Another little find was a set of Christmas rubber stamps! Great to use on this project don't you think?
• The next step is optional. If you have some Gilders Wax, just run around the edges of the Christmas cards with Holly. Just use a little of it to finish off the card's appearance. You could even use a gold or silver glitter pen and draw a thin line or two around the 3 sides for effect.
  The inside of the card is left blank for you to write on when you are ready to send it to your friend or family loved one.

Christmas Holly card with Merry Christmas Stamp

Christmas Holly card with gilded edges

• Follow the same directions as above, except this time use a smaller piece of card stock and fold evenly.
• Punch a hole in the back side of the card and insert a piece of ribbon or rope twine to use to attach to the gift you are giving.

Check out the two photos below. One Christmas card with Holly was made with 3 pieces of sea glass and the other used  2 only. Both look great. Another fun find at the Opportunity shop was this strand of metal red beads. Snipped off in lots of 2 and laid on top of each other created a great little berry bundle.

These Christmas card crafts for kids big and small are sure to delight. Easy to create and cost effective. They don't take long to make and you are sure to enjoy the process.

Christmas Holly gift tag with 3 pieces of sea glass

Christmas Holly gift tag with 2 pieces of sea glass

Shop for Sea Glass Gifts

Do you know someone who just loves handcrafted products? Maybe they love Sea Glass just like you?

Check out this unique product that you might like to consider as a special gift, possibly to lift someone's spirit a little and maybe generate a pleasant memory or two. Add it to one of your very own homemade Christmas cards with holly that you have made and it will create a wonderful present for your loved one.

Check out more hand crafted sea glass craft in my Online Sea Glass Shop. There are new products being added all the time and each is individually made by Maz, here in Pakenham, Victoria - Australia. The sea glass used is collected on the southern beaches of Victoria such as Robe in South Australia

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