Handmade Holiday Cards — 8 Unique Cards That Will Leave a Lasting Impression

Making your own holiday cards allows you to be creative, reduce your carbon footprint and leave a lasting impression that says you cared enough to take extra time to create a personal card. Plus, you’ll be saving some serious cash. One of our favorite tips: Using recycled ribbon to create eco-friendly Christmas tree cards. Want to get the kids involved? Enlist your children as inspired artists with a scribble-style holiday card set. Check out the rest of our holiday card roundup below for inspiration for your own style of personal greeting cards.

DIY Letterpress Card

Difficulty Level: Easy

A letterpress is a large hand-cranked machine that looks like it's straight out of the Industrial Revolution. Regardless, it is a popular option for printing and paper crafts because it combines the design element of typeset fonts with a rustic handmade impression. Can’t find or afford a letterpress, but still want the rich texture in your holiday card design? These cards by Black Bird Letterpress incorporate letterpress designs, but still offer enough creative room for you to customize them yourself. 

Get free instructions to make your own holiday letterpress card!

Hands Accordion Card

Difficulty Level: Easy

This unique holiday card from Gardner Designs reaches across religious lines towards a friendly gesture of comradery. Use this tall hand-shaped holiday card to welcome new friends or to reach out to old ones.

Get free instructions to make your own holiday accordion card!

Hand Painted Card

Difficulty Level: Easy

For a personalized holiday card, bust out the watercolors and challenge your artistic skills! You don’t have to create your own Mona Lisa, just pick a simple yet amusing illustration that will be easy to reproduce like a bearded lady or jolly octopus. Use festive colors like red and gold to create a holiday feel and keep the subject quirky.

Get the hand-painted card!

Scribble Dreidel Card

Difficulty Level: Easy

Lacking artistic skill? No problem. You can still make personal, handmade holiday cards with the coloring technique of a toddler. In fact, with this DIY holiday card you’re supposed to embrace the child within. Pick a shape, tape it to the card and scribble around it with beautiful, holiday accent colors. Youngsters can help with these cards too, just make sure to tape down the edges so no scribbles end up on the kitchen table.

Buy the Scribble Dreidel Holiday Card!

Origami Pop-up Card

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

For a fancy challenge, why not try creating pop-up origami Christmas cards? Your friends and family will enjoy the unique card and ornate shapes as they unfold. Different origami card patterns can be found many places online but try to stick to basic colors so that the intricacies of the origami stand out.

Buy a DIY origami card!

Recycled Ribbon Tree Card

Difficulty Level: Easy

Low on free time? Buy blank cards and use strips of ribbon to create your favorite holiday shapes for an easy cut and paste project. The natural tan color of recycled cards (available in bulk online) offer an earthy background for your holiday designs and will minamalize your paper guilt. Of course, you could also just make your own paper from recycled newspaper. Take a look around your house and gather what you can stand to recycle, then research methods of renovating your junk into holiday card material.
Get free instructions for the Recycled Ribbon Tree Holiday Card!

Argyle-Styled Holiday Card

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Argyle vests may remind you of Grandpa’s golf buddies, but the simple patterns can be a trendy staple for winter. Not a fan of holiday kitsch or simply just sick of snowflakes, trees and snowmen? This just might be the card style for you! Rummage through your closet and hunker down with your favorite argyle pattern for inspiration on making your own preppy holiday cards.

Get free instructions for the Argyle-Styled Holiday Card!

Recycled Paint Chip Card

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

Whether spawned by indecisiveness or obsessive collecting, paint chip piles are easy to acquire and very helpful in the DIY card world. Simply stop by any home improvement store and pick up a few samples of festive paint chip colors. You can then create patterns like this mosaic angel Christmas from Curbly or, if angels aren’t your thing, check out ways to create simple, yet festive mosaic holiday cards.

Get free instructions for a paint chip holiday card! And here!

Photo credits (top to bottom): BlackbirdLetterpress.etsy.com; Craftster.org; etsy.com/shine516; Curbly.com; GardnerDesign.com; etsy.com/popupcardmaking; Designspongeonline.com; Curbly.com