I made Christmas cards this year, partly to celebrate having more energy and my gradual recovery from
Long Covid. These are made at home and without a press, using hand burnishing with a spoon. Here's the process - might be handy for workshops or kid's art classes also.
I used store bought cards and envelopes for convenience, but you can cut your own of course.
I found a shape from my drawings of plants in the Kew Glasshouse, which was actually a fern frond I think. If you are going to try this, I'd encourage you to do something similar if you like the loose, individual shape of the tree.
Maybe google pine tree images, or even better go for a walk and see if there's anything you can rapidly sketch. Nothing that takes more than five minutes and can be done with your non-dominant hand, say, to keep a sense of energy and movement. It's really worth going out to see if there's anything around you that might work.
The wonkier your drawing, the better. Ferns, cactus forms, dried mustard seed plants or other weeds, really anything could work since the Christmas feel comes from the colours and the star.
Once you have a shape, transfer it to card by pressing hard with a pen or scribbling pencil on the back of the page.
I usually trace my shapes onto discarded packaging cardboard. The shiny, printed side is good for some things (a smooth texture, on the whole) but the other side can give softer feel. As can corrugated card.
Ideally use a sharp cutter, but if you're working with kids, obviously you'd go for a craft scissors and that'd work just fine and usefully result in less fiddly shapes.
Next, I used some of my favourite stripey paper bags (I am always so happy when shops use those, I'm thinking like 'What? You're just gonna go ahead and give me this amazing stripey bag, and for free? Yes!). But you could tear any red bits from magazines or maybe find sweet wrappers or whatever works. Be a magpie!
I like to keep the cutting loose, to contrast with the clearer printed shape of the tree. Do stick those down first (unlike me, who remembered mid-rollup), in however big you plan to make an edition, i.e. how many cards you want to end up with. I made twelve, which is a fair faff with spoon burnishing by hand, but anything more than two is a thrill to be honest.
Mix up a green (or a more of a teal in my case, which is yellow + a bit of blue + white) on a plastic or glass sheet. It does need to be flat, and washable, the sheet.
Roll it out, listening for a lovely sticky roller thwack but then again not so that the roller is sliding around. A creaking, squeaky roller = too little ink.
Ink up the shape, and carefully place it on the white card, but once its down, its down, go with that. Moving creates smudges.
Carefully burnish with the back of a spoon, making sure to press on the points and edges too, using a piece of tissue paper if the back of your shape is smudged with ink from the rolling up.
Remove by hand, or using a pointed stick to keep smudges to a minimum. (It's also handy to keep some talc powder and a wet cloth nearby to keep your hands as clean as possible.)
I added a printed yellow star, but you could equally just go for gold star stickers.
The ink will take a day or so to dry, so do bear that in mind in a workshop time frame as you'd likely need some tissue paper to protect each card from smudging if they're going home the same day, likely a little tacky still.
Other handy things to be on top of are:
- really make sure you have gathered everything you need beforehand, as hands get inky and then it's annoying to forage for pencils, scissors, glue etc.
- you can't have enough newsprint and tissue paper to hand, and w wet cloth is also useful.
- don't be cross if the print isn't perfect - the wonky bits are just fine and look lovely actually.
I hope this inspires ideas for a project or two - email me for more info or leave a comment below to let me know how you get on if you do.
