make happy: holiday card

Every year about Thanksgiving time, I think, Hmm...I should really figure out what I'm going to do for our holiday card this year. I throw several ideas around, stress out, and feel like throwing in the towel and buying a box of pre-printed cards. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) But somehow, at the next-to-last minute, I pull an idea out of thin air and run with it. This year, I even surprised myself--this card is super simple, cute, informative, all-inclusive, and leaves no paper waste.

My card starts with a 6" x 12" piece of cardstock. Note: this is one sheet of 12x12 cardstock cut in half. No waste.

I then scored fold lines every 4 inches, dividing the paper into thirds.

I used double-sided tape to adhere a 4x6 photo to the front of the card. Fits perfectly. No waste.

I typed my family letter and made it fit onto half of a landscape-oriented sheet of paper. (In my word processor, I changed my orientation to "Landscape" and formatted the page to show 2 columns. This divided the sheet into two 5.5" x 8.5" letters that fit perfectly inside the card.)

I used the same formatting in MS Publisher to create a photo collage of the same size. I printed the photos upside-down, so when the letter is attached and you flip it up, the photos will be correctly oriented. I printed the letters in one big batch, put the stack in my printer tray oriented appropriately (be sure to do some test sheets first), and then printed the photos upside-down on the back of the letter pages. Then all I had to do was cut down the middle with my papercutter. Again, no waste.

To attach the letter, I placed two tabs of double-stick tape to the bottom of the photo sheet (if you're looking at the photos right side up).

To attach, match the bottom of the letter with the bottom of the card. Or actually, about 1/4" from the bottom of the card. Just eyeball it. The tabs should attach just above the fold line at the top third of the card (so, opposite the 4x6 photo). Here's a close up of the attachment and how it folds.

Once the letter is attached, hold it and the card with your fingers, and fold them both up from the bottom to the center. Repeat and fold the whole thing up to the top.