Christmas Cards!!

When we were growing up, my mom would always make our Christmas Cards every year. They usually consisted of line drawings of me and my sister. Sometimes they included our pets, other times our cars (can't resist putting a VW Bug in a picture!) or a wreath, present, etc. I guess it just depended on how creative she wanted to get! (Don't worry, she didn't draw EVERY card! She drew one and then had them printed at the print shop!! Didn't want to give anyone the wrong impression!)

It always made me feel good to have a special Christmas Card sent out from our family. Not that I have anything against store bought cards... there are a lot of nice ones out there. But just having a personalized card that was drawn by my (very artistic) mom... just meant a lot. (Even if us girls did groan and grumble when she wanted to take our pictures to use as her inspiration for the design).

We even knew people who saved the card each year... which was pretty cool.

So, last year I decided I wanted to try my hand at making our Christmas Cards. I am definitely not nearly as artistic as my mom... but it doesn't hurt to try, right? Instead of line drawings though, I decided to do some block printing. I'd never done it before, so it took me a bit to get into the swing of things... but I was happy with the result and decided that I'd like to try again this year.

Of course, I can't do anything EASY... so this year I started drawing up a pretty intricate design. Once I started carving the block, I thought, No way am I going to be able to do all of these little lines and curves without messing up! I ended up setting the block aside and forgetting about it for a couple of weeks.

Well, last night... something got into me and I started working on it again. I couldn't believe it, but I actually finished it! I figured it would take me hours and hours! (It did take awhile, just not as long as I'd expected.)

I couldn't wait, so I pulled out the ink and brayer and rolled out a few test prints...

WOO HOOOOO! Success!!!!

So this morning, I couldn't help myself... I had to start printing them on the cards. I still have plenty more to do... but I thought I'd give you a little sneak peak.

This is not the "intricate" part of the design... but I didn't want to give the whole design away because I know that some of you will be getting your very own Devon Original this Holiday Season and I don't want to spoil it!!

(This was after I'd wiped some of the ink off)

If I remember, I'll post a picture of the full design in a few weeks, after I know all of the cards have been mailed out and received!!

Are any of you working on making your own Christmas Cards??

In other news: My appointment with my doctor went very well. I was pleased. So now I feel like I can breathe a little easier for my next appointment!!