Christmas holidays are coming up! Do you love spreading a little love around? I do! Many times simple things done lovingly by hand make the best treasures. My favorite are making cards and bookmarks. One time I made a bookmark of a cute girl with a big speech bubble and encouraging words. Another time I ventured into making hand carved rubber stamps of a girl in a thick bubble jacket and made bookmarks out of it with a different coloring for each person.
But I have to say, although the most enjoyable part was the making of those little cheers, the most rewarding part was the way my friends said "thank you". I still remember one friend looking at it and I could see the cogs turning. He asked, "Did you cut all of this by hand??" When I told him I did, he had the most amusing yet heart-warming "mind-blown" expression I've ever seen on anyone.
The bookmarks and cards cost so little but had so much value. They knew everything was painstakingly hand made and hand cut. The hours I poured despite my strained time schedule added value to the gift. What is Christmas without the giving?
With all that said, those were truly painstaking moments and I totally understand why not many bother to put in the extra hours when there is so much to get done for the holidays. It truly tears us apart. Us who want to be generous but don't have the precious resource of time.
But! Have no fear!
You have come to the right place! Here is how to make your many friends and family feel treasured with cards made lovingly by hand.
The Card
 To start off, we will be creating a Christmas comic card.
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Delight with a comic!
I love stories, and I don't know anyone who doesn't. What better way to get your message of love, thank you's, and wishes across but with a comic? I've made you stickers of various faces with different hair styles to represent as many people as possible and also body poses (and constantly adding). Mix and match the faces and body poses to surprise and delight your friends and family. Color their skin, hair, eyes, and even design the shirt they always seem to be wearing to make it look like them or you (depending on your ingenious story line)! I also made stickers of gifts, pinecones, and more decorations to make it all the more Christmassy.
What's your cheeky story?
The DIY stuff
Materials
- Cardstock (white) or any thick card-type paper
- Coloring/marking materials (I use Neopiko color markers)
- Stickers - face, body poses, and deco
- Ruler
4 materials --- Yes, it's as simple as that.Â
Steps
- Cut the cardstock to the size you want and fold.
- Draw comic panels on the front, inside left and inside right pages of the card.
- On the front page, add your stickers for the first panel in your comic.
- In the inside left page, add your stickers for the second panel in your comic.
- In the inside right page, add your stickers for the third panel in your comic.
- Fill-in the speech bubble stickers and pages with your script.
- Color as you wish.
Here are the step by step time lapse videos of how I made them.
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And for the final touches...
It's that quick to make one card -- and it got all your DIY love in it!I found that the most tedious and most prone to mistakes was when I was drawing the panel borders. If you plan to color on the card directly, be careful of bleeding! A good way to avoid this is to use 2 cards and stick them back to back so the bleeding doesn't show in the other side. To make it even easier for you, I have made cards with comic panels already drawn on the cards if you want to skip the drawing of comic panels.
Get the comic panel cards here.
In case you missed it, the links are below.
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So there it is!
By providing the elements you need to quickly create something beautiful (not from scratch) I hope I'm able to give you back some of your time to write down words that truly matter! So no more excuses! Say that "thank you" or "Merry Christmas" and even, "I'm sorry" before the year ends.
Enjoy!
