Brainstorms: Glitter is Coming

We have been making our own Christmas cards for years, filed under Homeschool Art Projects, or Making Virtue out of Necessity. I mean, we have to do something! It's cold outside, and as previously confessed, we're broke.The children need to develop their little hand muscles and artistic souls, so kitchen table cards it is.

Don't let the blog fool you, I am usually not so on top of this process as to have an actual process. It's usually a week long free-for-all of stencils, stickers, paint, and pens. But this year is unusual. I have an idea; a master plan, which I am imposing all over the place, and the kids are knocking it out. Paint, my elves! Paint!

In my adventures, buying used goods at the dump, I happened across the paper doilies and glitter necessary for this project; but not card stock. Instead, I found a big fat short cut in the form of a giant box of hanging file folders. Prefolded cards, just cut them out. I can get two to three from each folder.

You can paint these doilies any which way. George liked imagining where his trees would be cut, and stayed controlled with the lines and colors.

After slathering on some color, and letting it dry, cut the slices. Leaving little breaks of white between colors helps with the snow-covered tree effect.

 Glue the trees onto the folded card bases and top with a dot of glue + pinch of glitter. I hope you already know, the glitter will get everywhere. It's glitter. That's what it does, you know, besides glittering.

 We'll get a metallic ink pen and add some greetings and dots and squiggles, before mailing them all over this side of the planet.

There you have it. If you're on our mailing list, I guess the cat's out of the bag. Sorry for ruining that magical moment when you, with trembling fingers, open the package from our family and see for yourself what the card looks like. I figured it was only fair to warn you: Glitter is coming.