I have hinted a few times about my secret December craft, and while that was probably obnoxious, I really wanted this to be a surprise. This seems surprising even to me, but for all of my crafting, I have never made my own Christmas cards, and this year I wanted to change that.

And then I saw a post on Apartment Therapy all about linoleum printing and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

See, back in 7th grade, one of our art class projects was linoleum printing, and I had so much fun with it that I kept my carved linoleum block and still have it sixteen years later. For real. Why I kept it for all these years, I’m still not really sure, especially since I was ruthless when it came to childhood mementos when I moved last summer.

Anyway, the AT post told me what tools to buy, and I found most of them at a local art store, and bought the rest online. The cards and envelopes came from Paper Source, and the stamp on the inside was from AC Moore, after I had bought a more expensive one at PS; I couldn’t resist a snow theme.

I stamped about 30 cards in an hour or two one weeknight, and the only issue was that I came veeeery close to running out of space to lay each card out to dry overnight.

I stamped the insides of the cards and the envelopes another night, and was really disappointed in the white stamp pad, as well as the cheap white gel pens that I bought and didn’t end up using. Oh well.

And of course I had to washi tape the envelopes closed.

All in all, I am so, so happy with how these turned out, and I would do it again. (And I will definitely be linoleum printing again; perhaps here is where my future internet fortune lies!)