I signed up to participate in the Holiday Card Swap at Brooklyn Bride again this year. If you’ve never participated in a swap before, here’s how it works: once I joined the swap, I was randomly assigned 5 partners (plus an extra for the Brooklyn Bride herself). I was then responsible for making homemade Christmas cards for each of my partners, and they would each give a homemade card to me (and each other) in return. I did the swap last year too,  and I was so inspired by all of the cards I received! Plus, I had a good time making the cards. I don’t make a large batch of Christmas cards to mail out every year because I just don’t have the time, but 6 cards is much more manageable!

Here’s what I made this year:

The cards were so simple and quick to make, I thought I’d share a mini-tutorial, in case any of you are scrambling to make some last-minute cards this year. Here’s what I did:

1. The actual cards were made out of a piece of pre-cut cardstock, which I had leftover from some invitations I made last spring. I just folded them in half. (See, I told you this was simple!)
2. Then I looked through my paper scraps and selected several different types of green paper. I ended up with 9 different varieties.
3. I used my circle punch and punched circles from each type of paper, 11 per card.
4. When I was done cutting, I arranged the circles into a wreath shape on each card and stuck them down with mini glue dots.
5. Next I grabbed some mini Christmas bows from my stash, originally from the dollar store about a decade ago–it pays to hoard sometimes! I attached these to the wreaths with a 3-D adhesive square.





6. For the inside, I cut a simple strip of red paper and adhered it with more glue dots, and then I punched 5 circles from some green cardstock with a basic hole punch. I stuck these circles down with more 3-D adhesives.



7. I wrote a little message inside after the pictures were taken. And then, I was done!