How to Add Personal Touches to Your Holiday Cards

As someone that loves getting snail mail, there are few times as exciting as Christmas card season. And while society may try to imply that you have to be married, have children or a cute dog to mail out cards – don’t believe the hype. This post is all about how to personalize your own holiday cards. Are you a last minute Lucy and still haven’t ordered your cards? No worries, Paper Source is running a huge Christmas card sale, $5 flat rate 2-day shipping on orders over $50, and they have some New Years cards too! Not too late.

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How to Add Personal Touches to Your Holiday Cards | Picking a Card & Why I Chose Paper Source

This year, I decided I wanted to go with a custom card. Paper Source has TONS of photo card options; originally, I planned on using photos from a holiday shoot to create a classy, ‘I have my life together,’ photo card. That thought completely went out the window though when I saw these “New Year, Same Me” cards. This greeting card felt SO genuine to me & I knew my friends would all actually LOL when they got them in the mail. #BeTrueToYourBrand

I’ve been a big fan of Paper Source for a while now; on top of having unique greeting cards for every single person in your life, they also carry gift wrap, small gift, and décor. They also offer monthly classes where they teach you how to make your own unique cards, calligraphy, how to make paper fans, etc. A few years ago, I took a Christmas card class with my mom, it really got my creativity going when it came to wrapping my gifts and creating fun gift tags.

How to Add Personal Touches to Your Holiday Cards | What You’ll Need

I loved the sassy saying on this card but you can put whatever you want on the back! After deciding what message to have printed on the back, I was able to get creative and infuse the cards with my own personal flair. Here’s what you’ll need to recreate this at home:

• ‘New Year, Same Me’ Customizable Card
• Envelopes
• Envelope Liner Template Kit – This pack of stencils has 7 different sizes for the most popular envelopes. You can use this to trace out envelope liners on ANY kind of paper or wrapping paper.
• OPTIONAL: Precut Envelope Liners
• Cheap wrapping paper
• Ballpoint pen
• Scissors
• Tape runner or glue dots
• Washi tape
• Metallic Sharpie

How to Add Personal Touches to Your Holiday Cards | Step By Step: Envelope Liners

When you order custom cards, you’ll order your envelopes separately. Be sure to check to see what size you need and then choose a color. Right now, Paper Source has some special edition holiday colors, Poinsettia and Spruce, if you want to go traditional red and green for Christmas. These envelopes are the fuchsia; I wanted to pick an envelope that would stand out in a stack of mail.

I usually use wrapping paper for envelope liners; it’s a cheap way to do things! For this year’s holiday cards, I used two different liners. The black paper with the gold dots is old and from the Target Dollar Spot, the red and white stripe with gold dots is from Hobby Lobby. While I’m picky about which papers I use for wrapping, you don’t need anything super thick for envelope liners. This is really where you can get creative; I’ve used glitter paper, prints, solids, etc. You can also use scrapbook paper if you have that on hand!

Take your paper of choice and using the Envelope Liner Template Kit, trace your liners with the ballpoint pen and then cut them out. Don’t have time to trace and cut? Paper Source offers precut envelope liners for those times when you’re in a jam. You can get solid colors or go with a fun print

Once you have your envelope liners you’ll slide them into the envelope to get the placement and then run your double sided tape on the inside of the flap. If you’re using glue dots, just place 3-4 around the edge and middle of the flap.

How to Add Personal Touches to Your Holiday Cards | Unique Addressing

The metallic Sharpie is great for giving a luxe look if you’re addressing by hand. {You can order your envelopes pre-addressed though!} Finally, I broke out some paper tape; you can use this to decorate your envelopes or just as an additional seal.

I was so happy with the way these turned out; they look and feel “me,” with the fun pattern mix and bold color!

If you don’t want to wait for custom cards to come in, you can also purchase boxed greeting cards like these “Cozy & Warm” ones and use the same steps to make hem unique to you. I used the striped paper to do a fun pattern mix and then used a gold paper tape.