Snip Snip Here, Snip Snip There

As I once said, I never get bored.  Mainly because I jump into so many things.  Way back when, I was really into scherenschnitte (paper cutting).  At Christmas, I unearth this angel I made 20 years ago.  Her wings are a little bent, but she has held up pretty well I think.

I also got the hairbrained idea one year around that time to make tree cards to match the Christmas postage stamp that year.  Yes, I patiently cut out three folded trees for each card, cut the cover edge to outline the tree, sewed (yes, sewed) all the trees, used my Gocco printer to print the greetings on the cards (and used embossing powder on the printed greeting).  P.S... did I mention I was not working at the time?  I probably made close to 100 of these cards.  Even I don't believe it when I look back on it!

On a technical note, I think I finally found the setting to allow you to click on the pictures to enlarge them.  That has been bugging me to not be able to do that consistently, so hopefully the problem is fixed.

Go cut something (but no running with scissors!)

[Addendum!] -- Since I had some questions about the tree card, here are a couple more pictures and more about the assembly process.  The paper trees were sewn together first, then glued to the card.  I'm pretty sure I just used Elmer's white glue as back then I had not yet amassed my huge collection of bookbinding supplies.  And I'm not sure if glue sticks had been invented yet (gasp!)  I do know the trees were sewn with just regular sewing thread.  Anything larger would have been too bulky.  And, if you can see the sewing part, the sections above and below the heart in the center were the hardest to sew, because I could only make a couple of small stitches, tie a knot and then sew another section.  Very tedius.  (If I were doing it today, knowing that it is "okay" to sew on paper with a sewing machine, I would just zip from top to bottom on the sewing machine and be done with it!)

Also, this was my prototype card, the first one I made.  I know that because of the little paper squares near the trunk of the tree.  My original idea was to put accordion fold strips between each "page" so the tree would open equally and perfectly.  Well, that idea lasted about as long as it took to actually do that on one tree.  That was just way more work that it was worth.  And if the recipient opened the card too wide, the strips would become detached anyway!  The other picture is out of focus, but you can see the mechanism I was trying to add.  Teeny 1/8" strips attached with doublestick tape that was tedious to cut, as you can imagine. 

The paper for the trees was calligraphy "parchment" paper.  As any calligrapher knows, this paper is Awful to try to write on.  It's great for other paper projects though!

And so ends today's lesson on the History of Past Christmas Cards!