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I used to make all my Holiday card exactly the same. With the exception of cards for my son and daughter and Grandson. I make them each a different card. This year I cut all the paper , die cut the lacy ovals. I loved the card I made my daughter so much I made the same card for my son and DIL. I also made the same card for my "special stamping" friends. My Grandson got a different card. The card was so much work I only made 5. So then I made a really quick card for my SIL's and BFF. It was really nice to use the same design with different stamps. I may never make all the same card for everyone again!!! I also decided that if you got a St. Pat's Card or Birthday card this month you aren't getting an Easter card. I'll write Happy Easter on those cards. I have some people that would have gotten 2 or 3 cards in a month... Too much work. Even though I am newly retired, my husband and I are really busy and I don't have as much card making time as I thought I would.
__________________ Bev
Organized People are just too lazy to hunt for things!!!
For Christmas I usually do 5-6 designs. The other holidays I do 'kid' cards and 'grown-up' cards. I don't send out as many Easter, Valentines, Thanksgiving etc. On these holidays I may switch up colors or DSP but otherwise they are pretty much the same.
__________________ AM Bevel is DGR Proud SU! Demo - My SU! page HERE Facebook!:HERE Instagram!: HERE Pintrest!:HERE
I try to make 3 Christmas cards every month so I'll have enough when busy December arrives. I make whatever I feel like making that month and try to match the style with the recipient at mailing time. I do keep a list of who gets what so I don't send them the same card the next year.
nah, my limit seems to be about 6 of the same design. ( it's really hard for me to even do two so, there are usually variations between them if I do use two with the same stamp or papers)
I also try to make a few a month and very few of them are even similar. That is really because I prefer not to make a lot of repeat cards and I like playing in so many challenges throughout the year and that alone makes for a lot of variety.
In December if I still don't have enough, I may make some repeats.
If I don't have enough for another holiday, like Easter, I kindof do what you say and skip that person if they recently got another hand made card from me and I just don't sweat it. I receive very few cards for anything other than birthdays and Christmas, so I don't feel badly about that.
I do the same for everyone but that's only about 25 cards.......I usually have the inspiration for next years card before that years card is even mailed. By March I try to have all the paper cut and then work on different aspects of the card when the feeling hits. Sometimes the card are really elaborate and then some years I just go for CAS. That part of Xmas is organized.......there's always the last minute flurry of needing tags and gift card holders etc. Haven't been able to wrap my brain around that part but there's always hope!
Usually my cards are all different, or there may be two or four that are the same (because I can get two cards from one sheet of cs, sometimes I will make two of the same design). The cards I tuck into the lunch bags of my Meals on Wheels clients and that I send to church shut-ins I do make all the same, only because they comment on them to me and I wouldn't remember which one I gave who and I feel funny asking since they are elderly people, and so on.
My cards are usually different, also, because I rarely make them with a specific person in mind. They are a result of my monthly stamping group meeting, or challenges, or VSN, etc.
Up until this year, I have done two designs, One for family and close friends, then a smaller simpler one for acquaintances. And I never start till October at the earliest, because I really don't look forward to the mass production required! The acquaintances cards run into the hundreds alone.
For that reason alone I could not face making them all through the year. This year I decided I would do 4 or 6 of each design max- result is that I have 21 cards made already!
I really like assembly line card making, although I know some folks get bored with it. I make lots of multiples when I find a design and image that I like. For holidays, I usually make about 40 cards, and they are all the same.
I also like to crochet afghans, which is basically doing the same row over and over again, so go figure. Aren't we all so different in what appeals to us?
I do make one-of-a-kind special cards for my grandchildren, and usually the card reflects whatever they are interested in at the moment. I just finished a card for a 16 year old featuring a video game character she is currently obsessed with. I know she will squeal when she gets it!
__________________ Bugga in OK
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." Dalai Lama
This is usually how my process goes: I decide on the design when I start getting in the Christmas mood, usually early fall. I think about it for a few weeks in anticipation. Then I sit down to start working on them and then oooh shiny! I see a stamp set or some embellishment on my desk, and then I have another idea for a design. Rinse, repeat.
By early December, I've come up with at least five or six designs I want to do, and have quite a few half finished cards scattered around my craft room :-) I finally pick the one that feels most right in the moment, and make all the cards the same. It's like this every year, so I've stopped trying to fight it!
This is usually how my process goes: I decide on the design when I start getting in the Christmas mood, usually early fall. I think about it for a few weeks in anticipation. Then I sit down to start working on them and then oooh shiny! I see a stamp set or some embellishment on my desk, and then I have another idea for a design. Rinse, repeat.
By early December, I've come up with at least five or six designs I want to do, and have quite a few half finished cards scattered around my craft room :-) I finally pick the one that feels most right in the moment, and make all the cards the same. It's like this every year, so I've stopped trying to fight it!
Good for you, Poppy. Like I said in another thread, knowing yourself is a good thing.
__________________ Bugga in OK
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." Dalai Lama
I'm like Bugga - I like assembly line card making. Give me 10 cards to make all the same and I'm a happy girl.....give me 10 different cards to make and I just sit there....:shock:...and then hand them off to my twin who loves to make different cards and not mass produce like me The joys of having a twin who is the yin to my yang when it comes to making cards!
__________________ Lorraine
Wife to an awesome DH, Mommy to an adorable DS who is on the spectrum for autism, and Twin Sister to Linda
My creative process is so incredibly slow - that it would take me FOREVER if I made a different card for different people! I usually make around 12 of each design for Christmas cards. Everything else is around 4 - 8
Since I have to send for both Jewish and Christian holidays and it takes me a LONG time to design, and I need at least 30 per holiday...yes, they are all the same. It's hundreds of cards in a year. I just cant do that yet as individuals.
I remember when I used to buy assorted boxes and then I was sitting there trying to match those to people...I dont want to do that again.
Maybe someday I will start making so early but right now...if I had any spare time, I'd be making all the others like Get Well, Sympathy, etc as I have been leaning on my stash of bought cards for those and that is running very low now.
My Christmas card for last year I made a pretty DP do the heavy lifting and that design concept was new for me and was SO much easier...I might do more of that for holidays so I can focus more on other stuff that helps me learn techniques etc.
For Christmas I would make 4-5 of a design and lots of individual cards. For other holidays [Valentine's, Easter, St. Pat's, July 4th, Halloween, Thanksgiving] I would do all individual cards. But this year I changed and I'm doing 4-6 for all holidays. I found that I was constantly making holiday cards and no time to just play with different techniques. It was a hard decision for me to make since I loved making so many different cards but something had to change since I had so many tools, paints, stencils, etc. that need to be played with. I just finished 6 St. Patrick's day cards - all the same and I'm ready to start on Easter cards with only 3 designs. Wish me luck to continue doing this!
Nope! I get bored too fast haha. Usually I make one of a kind and once awhile I will make 2. Rarely I will make 4. But that is all I can do alike. Unless I get an order for something, like a bunch of thank you cards. Then I think I am getting paid to be monotonous so it takes the pain away
I'm the one who likes the assembly line method, and I was just thinking about something from when I was a little girl, long, long ago.
For those old enough to remember, they had something called "trading stamps" that you received when you bought stuff. Then you pasted all the little stamps in a book and traded it in for items.
Guess who loved to paste in all those rows of stamps as a little girl?:mrgreen:
Personality and temperament show up early!
__________________ Bugga in OK
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." Dalai Lama
Then I sit down to start working on them and then oooh shiny! I see a stamp set or some embellishment on my desk, and then I have another idea for a design. Rinse, repeat.
LOL I do this way too often with a design for a single card, let alone a whole set! But that being said I rarely rarely make more than 2 or so of one card- like has been said, I get bored with assembly line. And if I do like one enough to make another the second is usually a different color or just a little bit different somehow- like I look at the first one and figure out the ways it could be better and use those ideas on the second card!
I make Christmas and other holiday cards year round when the urge strikes. I make somewhere around 500 Christmas cards for card sale at church in November, my sisters church , MD Anderson and my personal cards. I make 12, 16, or 20 of each design sometimes more if I like a design. If I put several cards in each box for the things I support it doesnt ome out to very many duplicates in each box. I love making cards and giving them away.
Year before last I made them all the same...easel card with a great SU Nativity scene. Made 20 ish over the weekend chatting with hubby and watching TV. EZ!!
This past year I used the same paper/dies/stamp set and each one was different....took FOREVER!! Partly because I had to style each card to go with the paper cut outs and also because I embossed and colored with Markers so many Poinsettia flowers I never want to see a Poinsettia again! I won't go with matching stamps, dies, paper again! Although I will say, these were gorgeous works of art because of the Heartfelt Creation products I was working with. LOVE Heartfelt!
Next year, simple design, done!
Edited to add: Bev/TexasGrammy sent out a simple card she found on pinterest. I am thinking about CASE ing her card and using poinsettias in place of the flowers and stamping inside with a stamp I love but haven't used before.
Last edited by CottageBliss; 03-09-2016 at 10:57 PM..
I'm the one who likes the assembly line method, and I was just thinking about something from when I was a little girl, long, long ago.
For those old enough to remember, they had something called "trading stamps" that you received when you bought stuff. Then you pasted all the little stamps in a book and traded it in for items.
Guess who loved to paste in all those rows of stamps as a little girl?:mrgreen:
Personality and temperament show up early!
Oh Bugga....we are kindred spirits! I'm like that with Box Tops for DS's school. I'm the one who sits and trims them all down and then glues them on a collection sheet (25 to a sheet). It's happy work for me
Sorry to digress.....back to the topic.....
__________________ Lorraine
Wife to an awesome DH, Mommy to an adorable DS who is on the spectrum for autism, and Twin Sister to Linda
I make my Christmas cards all the same...usually 80 of them. I wouldn't be able to remember who got what if I didn't! My cards have gotten simpler over the years because of postal requirements....I don't want to pay extra for bulky embellishments!
I'm the one who likes the assembly line method, and I was just thinking about something from when I was a little girl, long, long ago.
For those old enough to remember, they had something called "trading stamps" that you received when you bought stuff. Then you pasted all the little stamps in a book and traded it in for items.
Guess who loved to paste in all those rows of stamps as a little girl?:mrgreen:
Personality and temperament show up early!
I know those stamps! Most of the lamps in my house growing up came from there plus a few other things like an iron, etc! I remember how excited i got when we went to the redemption center to get something as a child!
Mine are all simple and assembly line. I make about 25 for myself and about 50 for my mother. So 75 cards - two designs. I also try to make them postal friendly.
Do you make all you holiday cards the same?
