I  grew in a family that sent out handmade Christmas cards each year.  My earliest memory of making cards is carrying the freshly printed card from my father at the silk screen to my mother to place on the drying rack.  The card was made up of leftover wallpaper folded into a card.  When I was seven, I was allowed to draw the design for that year’s card.  It was seven swans a-swimming.  By the time I was 10 years old we had a small printing press. We would use vintage cuts and type to make our cards.

It was when we started  to create our own cuts that we vastly expanded our mailing list. Above is the first pop-up Christmas card I designed circa 1979.  It was a postcard and required the recipient to cut on the thick black lines and fold on the dotted lines. Each card was hand-colored.

I took a fold-up house Christmas card (circa 1980) and adapted it to become a Halloween card. (See below)  Once again it was a postcard that the recipient had to cut out and assemble.

 

Fast forward to 2017 –  I had time on my hands and decided to try making some pop-up cards by printing digital papers and then cutting shapes from them. I popped them up using basic pop-up mechanisms.  Below is what I created.

In 2019 I celebrated Christmas card making with the 12 Days of Christmas Trees.

Now in 2020 I am sharing A Week of Christmas Houses