Sew Your Christmas Cards

For one or two thousand reasons, sewing on paper does not come immediately to people's minds when they think of lugging out the sewing machine, or strangely enough, even when they think of making Christmas cards. What can I say - it's one of life's great mysteries - BUT this Instructable is going to change all that. From now on you will think paper.... sewing.... Christmas cards... sewing... you are getting very sleepy... your eyelids feel very heavy... when I snap my (virtual) fingers you will awake and think 'I want to sew a Christmas card'. *snap!*

Step 1 What You Will Need

1. Blank cards and envelopes (I used 7" x 5 1/4" cards with an indented panel on the front that acts like a frame)
2. A sewing machine
3. Scraps of fabric
4. Really sharp scissors (because really sharp scissors are one of life's great pleasures and besides that you deserve them.
5. Colorful thread
6. Stabilizer paper or tissue paper to place underneath your fabric while sewing
7. An iron

Comments

[luvit]

 in kindergarten we did this by hand. and used yarn. and i didn't like it.
i liked song-time better. when it was milk-time i always drank chocolate.

[tqwerty]

how exactly do you drink chocolate?

[scoochmaroo]

Beautiful!
I make all of my beginning sewing students sew on paper the first time they use a machine.  Totally blows their mind.

[porcupinemamma]

Where do you teach sewing schochmaroo?

[zieak]

Sign me up for your class!

[Ninzerbean]

I ended up with my 96 year old grand mother's recipe book and she had many recipes that had been cut from the newspaper sewn onto the pages, it was what gave me the idea, though I wish I could take your class! 

[zieak]

I love it.  I might experiment with this for wedding invitations...

Oh - and i hope the subliminal flossing thing from the Instructable works on me.

[porcupinemamma]

those would be cool invites.  could they be for you per chance??? lol ;0)

[Ninzerbean]

 Ha! No they are for you to come visit when you get tired of the snow.

[porcupinemamma]

Well done!!! I've always wanted to try something like this but wasn't sure how to go about it.  Thanks so much for sharing your ideas.  Wayyyyyyyyyyyy groovy baby. (big bold letters so I can read new glasses should be in in a week.) 5/5

[Creativeman]

Great instructable, Ninzer: I'm not into sewing, but would like to learn. Tell you what...you teach me sewing, I teach you paper/felt roses! Oh, 3000 miles, duh! Virtually impossible, eh?  Cman

[Ninzerbean]

Sewing is very "instant gratification", that's why I like it, it's like glue for fabric in that it glues the pieces together. I still want to try those roses in felt. Thanks Cman.

[Creativeman]

I think of things to make all the time if I only knew how to sew...maybe. I thought about your felt suggestion, and as it turned out, I had a piece of red material and decided to 'make a rose' with that. Then I discovered I did have a piece of red felt...so...I glued the felt to a piece of paper then cut out the pedals. I wonder how it would work to sew them to paper?  You could use contrasting thread for a special effect. What do you think? Cman

[Ninzerbean]

Wow! Those look gorgeous Cman, I like the message too. I don't think you would need to sew them to paper though as they don't need anything else. Put a pinback or safety pin on the back and you have a pin.

[ChrysN]

Great cards,sewing Merry Christmas on paper looks really cool.

[Very Interesting]

Must - sew - Christmas Cards - with - floss - while - voting - for - contest * Snap! What?

Nice instuctable, looks like fun:)

[Toaster Muffin]

 I may not be into sewing but this is a great idea, 5 stars. I am tired o those boring old Hallmark cards.

[domestic_engineer]

good job sewing merry christmas. how did you do it? did you use a quilting setting or something without the feed dogs. (that's what those teeth on the bottom of the machine that push the fabric through are called, right?)

[Ninzerbean]

Yup, I love that word. I just went slowly and pretended I was writing. It was really easy and every one was a keeper, uh, I mean sender.