Win a Handcrafted Christmas Card!

Guess what my family is doing in this year’s handcrafted Christmas card, and I’ll send you one!

Illustrating my Christmas cards has been a fun family tradition for a long time. The first cards included one or two drawings reproduced by a professional printer. They didn’t take much time at all. Easy peasy.

But easy peasy brings on boredom, which can lead to big-time crazy. When I get an idea, I’m like a starving dog with a t-bone. I won’t let go. (Okay, so I’ve been bingeing Ted Lasso.)

Behold the popup cards.

Some were more complex than others, but they took an exorbitant amount of time. As if the holiday season isn’t hectic enough. One year, I missed a friend’s Christmas party to finish them, so they would arrive on time. Talk about being stressed out. Where’s the fun in that?

The Christmas tree popup card on the right was returned-to-sender for more postage. Everyone received them on New Year’s. The card with the gravestones marked with years included twisting mechanisms. So many pieces!

After those debacles, I tried to keep the cutting and pasting to a minimum, but there’s beauty in the layers, don’t you think?

For the last few years, I simplified—one without a popup and the other with only one sheet of paper cut and pasted. Neither of them took very long.

So that’s a lie. The drawings below took a while to sketch before inking.

Not sure what I was thinking this year.

I’m taking a class to write a pilot for a television series and had no idea I would be writing through the holidays. I needed to simplify. Go back to basics. Nope. Once I get an idea, I won’t let go of that bone.

It’s time to guess!

Have an idea about what I drew in this year’s card? Leave your guess in the comments, and I’ll send you one! It doesn’t matter where you live.

What are your holiday traditions? Do you ever get an idea that consumes you? Are you a vegetarian or a steak lover?