I have a love-hate thing going on with cards. I love them. I love sending them. I love receiving them. I love buying them. I don't love that it's very difficult to find the right sentiment. Holidays are particularly hard for this. Finding the right card for the right person starts to become a nightmare.

The solution?

Make your own, right? Yikes. Not creative or artistic? That's fine. I got you. 

Okay. Let's take a piece of paper. It's nice if it's not computer paper, but anything will work. I used a piece of heavy stock paper. It was from Target, probably three years ago. You know how you accumulate craft stuff? Yeah. Dig through there. Cut it down to the size you want. Mine is about 8x5 inches so that it will fold into a 4x5 card.

Next comes the background! I used some cheapy-cheap watercolors. You know, the Crayola kind that costs a couple of bucks. I used black, purple, and blue, and tons of water to create a sky-like gradient. Hit it with a hairdryer if you're impatient, then stick it under some heavy books to flatten it down. Yay!

Okay, now the pretty tree! The tree is made out of paint sample chips that I stole from Walmart. Yep! I picked out a nice shade of stump-brown and some green ones. I cut the green chips into triangles and the brown one into a tree trunk rectangle. I then glued them on. I wanted it to look more kitschy, so I stuck the triangles on at a slant. For a more polished look, you could put them on nice and straight and symmetrical.

Last thing! I used a scrap of the same white paper that the card is made of to create some snow to put over the bottom of the tree for a finishing touch.

Write whatever you want on the inside and give to someone special!

Show me your DIY cards on Insta! Be sure to tag me! :)