I’m not a scrapbooker. I’m a knitter and a mediocre sewer and a baker and I love doing Christmas crafts with kids young and old, but I have no imagination for scrapbooking. I have great admiration for people who do, and I wish I had lovely scrapbooks full of my pictures…and handmade cards I could give people, and gift tags, and — oh, all those other things you can make when you’re a good scrapbooker.

But since I wanted to do Christmas crafts, and make handmade cards, and I have no scrapping skills, I relied on something that comes a little easier to me. Very basic embroidery.

If you have a few sewing supplies on-hand, and some form of cardstock or thick paper, you’ve got everything you need for these adorable Christmas crafts.

Supplies:

• cardstock or other card-making paper
• embroidery floss
• embroidery needle
• pencil
• other decorative pens or things to add to your card

Instructions:

Fold your cardstock into the shape and size of the car you want. On the front, freehand draw or trace your design lightly with your pencil. Take the embroidery needle and poke holes along your drawing — these will be the spots you’ll sew your stitches. I think it’s better to make more holes, closer together so that you get smaller, neater stitches. It’s also easier to follow lines and loops this way.

Once you have your drawing outlined with hole punches, backstitch your design onto your card (here’s a good tutorial on the backstitch if you’re not familiar with it — it’s pretty easy to get the hang of, especially when you already have the holes punched where you’re going to sew.)

I did two very simple designs — a tree and a Santa hat (which is basically just a triangle), but I think they looked really cute once they were sewn.

I embroidered the sayings on the card, too, but then I was ready to be done and my tree still needed a little more…ooomph. I added some gold snowflakes with a gel pen, some ornaments on the tree, and a cotton ball to the hat, and that was it. Done!

I think embroidering cards might end up a new addiction for me. It reminded me of those lacing cards I used to do when I was little, and it would be a great way to introduce a child to sewing.

Happy cardmaking!