I seem to have a thing for Christmas trees for my handmade cards. I’m not sure why, but at least I’m consistent! This year my cards were totally inspired by The Sweet Stitches - do go and check out some of her reels on Instagram, they’re amazing.

I’m pleased with how my cards turned out, and while I started much earlier than normal as I was keen to get my cards posted as they were doubling up as change of address cards from our house move in the summer, I seem to be sharing them here much later!

Yes, with postage costs what they are I have no shame about doubling these up, even though they’re about half a year apart. As it was MOH’s eyebrows were raised when the post office teller gave the amount for twenty four second class stamps, which wasn’t too bad as we’d managed to hand deliver many of our change of address cards to friends on our recent London trip.

But anyway, back to the cards…

Four christmas tree shaped templates with scissors alongside them on the small white round table, the tree templates are on a blue circular coaster

I started with some templates, four for good measure. I think that’s why I keep coming back to trees, their shape is pleasing and like nature, there’s room for some variation each time, I’m not one for being rigorously contained - and that goes for trees too it seems!

I had scraps of fusible interfacing as well as plenty of scraps of material. I kept my palette pretty simple - reds and greens, and the snowflakes on my red Christmassy fabric was a bonus.

On the scraps of single sided fusible interfacing I drew on some Christmas tree shapes - for my test I tried different pens ranging from a Sharpie, to a regular biro to a pencil, and all worked perfectly fine. I mostly continued to use the biro as it was easier to use and was easily visible from the other side.

The fusible interfacing side up with the tree shapes drawn on, on my crafting mat

The reverse - and patterned side - of the image above, small snips of reds greens and snowflake material

I ironed on small scraps of fabric which I’d cut into random shapes. These were quite small, and that was on purpose as my templates were pretty small too. The trick here is not to overlay the fabrics too much (as they won’t stick) and not to get too stuck on (pun intended - sorry) covering every part, though seeing where fabric covered the template was useful.

The four colourful and multi coloured trees cut out - and a pile of trimmings alongside them on the craft mat

Cutting them out was more enjoyable than you might think. Seeing that pile of trimmings grow and the trees take shape was satisfying, and I was keen to check the size on my card blanks.

A single tree laid onto a brown craft card - trying for size!

It was simple, but it worked for me.

So the tree production started.

Every one different. Every one unique.

tree production - two rows of five trees and a row of four below on my craft room desk

If you looked at my Instagram inspiration then you’ll notice a very obvious difference. Mine don’t have the top stitching, well one does - I tried it and my shapes were too small and too intricate for my machine. So I need to work on that, or at least work out if free motion embroidery is an option for my machine!

Instead I added little diamante studs to the end of each branch and a star on top, which worked a treat.

Now I’d love to show you an image of a final card, but somehow in my keenness to get them to their recipients I don’t have one - not sure how I managed that, but take my word for it the sparkles definitely finished them perfectly.

I’ll be trying more of this technique next year I’m sure - my learning is to try bigger shapes and bigger scraps, and hopefully I’ll be better at photographing the end result!