Holiday Cards from Scraps

 I have so many scraps especially from making masks. I wanted to use them up but also keep thinking of ways to do things for the kids in town. We retired to this small rural town inland Southern California. Much of the activites are outdoors. My family has teachers, principals, aides in the family as I was an aide mysel. My mothers's motto as well as her mother's was volunteer and share skills. Growing up with my mother was like going to high end preschool.  Always arts and crafts and always upcycled.

So I practiced making some cards using basic shapes. I bought some card stock I cut in half then folded those in half to make the cards. I gained a glue stick that says "permanent adhesive" in a donation of craft supplies. I've not used glue sticks for a long time so have no idea if this is a new concept. But it worked really well sticking the fabric to the cards.

Below are more sample cards I made as well as the top photo. For the kids kits locally I'm including a card and scraps matching the particular card. I traced off the shapes for the cards I made as templates. They are drawn on printer paper so hopefully the images print that size which will match the size to use on the cards. Or just use as a vidual guide. Like the present is just a square and ribbon cut to length. Christmas ornaments you can trace a small lid. I cut my templates on stiffer cardboard like from an empty tissue box.

It was early November when I was practicing making these. I had single leaves left on stems from making a wreath. I pulled the plastic stems off and glued them to the cards. This could be an idea with other fake flowers. Cut and layer some petals sideways but more so just let your and kids imagination go! I drew in some stem details as I did with the snow man branch hands and buttons using a paint marker. A pencil tip dipped in paint would work too or any small end.

The candy cane is knit tshirt scraps. Its not that manageable cutting such shapes with knits unless you ironed to fusible interfacing. Not including knits in my kid kits. Im going to make up some cards myself to sell. 

The gnome's beard and the snowman are white sweatshirt scraps with the inside, fluffy side facing up. The angel head is the also sweatshirt scrap but the knit side up. I realized sweatshirts are like a replacement for felt. I have more sweatshirt scraps in several colors from making my sweatshirt jackets. Baby in manger just a test. A bit fiddly!

I had some tshirt flannel with snowflake design on them. Was trying to make a cardinal.  Cut a branch from floral scraps. Maybe better for Spring cards. 

The angel wings look a bit odd. Looks more like arms waving. 

I was thinking to make some templates multi use. The small triangle is the stars as well as the branched Christmas tree. The angel is a large triangle and also the large Christmas tree. Circles are snowman and angel head.

For these other cards I made I just cut direct shapes but did add to my template pattern pages.

I thought these examples of cards are very nice and easy to make just using bits of ribbon. Adding buttons, stars, any small cutouts.

More ideas for shapes.  Actually you can break almost any image into shapes and blocks. That's how I did my gnome. I looked at gnome images in general even ones painted on rocks. Then drew one. Cut it apart into sections. I filled in some gaps in the outlines to glue the pieces on top of each other.  Some of these images are not cards. Appliques for quilts would make good images for any card like florals for Spring.

Although I didnt outline my scrap pieces I like how some of the candles were outlined below.

Templates

I labeled the pieces with numbers and then wrote the order to glue them. Some are just the noted inches I cut a strip, not really a template. Like the lace and ribbon strips.

I don't know why but I used a green ink pen to draw these. Then tried to scan and print black but our printer is not working too well because we bought cheap non brand ink. The print heads still have issues so I just tried editing with an app to get the templates more clear. You may want to adjust to white and black only scale if you want to try to print these. One day soon I will try to redo when printer is working better.

Gnome and Snowman

Star and Ball ornaments

Candy Cane

Large tree, trunk, pot

or

Angel with wings, halo

Candles