Too busy to spend a lot of time on Christmas crafts with your family? Well, you’re in luck, because the Internet is a great source of free images that can be used to make easy Christmas craft projects. For example, crafts made from vintage holiday cards or vintage Christmas images found online make projects simple, due to the fact that vintage images are versatile and also quite effective when it comes to delivering a holiday message. Because of their age, vintage images can also be downloaded and used without fear of copyright infringement. That’s important for people who want to honor copyrights (as we all should).
Just a quick Web search using the search term “vintage Christmas” will give you a huge selection of free vintage images from which a lot of craft projects can be made. And, of course, if you don’t like vintage, contemporary Christmas clip art can also be used to produce beautiful projects.
Here are examples of three projects nearly anyone can make by using free art found online:
Holiday Gift Tags
You can actually find free Christmas gift tags on the Internet but you might find it more fun to make your own. Simply download the the image or images you like and insert them into a table in your word processing or other type of program. Make the table two columns by six or eight rows, depending on how tall you want the cards to be. Paste the art into every other cell if you want to fold them or in every cell if you don’t, making sure there’s enough room to write people’s names. Then, print the page onto card stock, cut the place cards using a paper cutter or a ruler and craft knife. If you’d like to attach the cards to presents with strings, use a hole punch in the corners of the cards.
Handmade Christmas Greeting Cards
When you’ve downloaded the Christmas image you’d like to use, paste it into a word processing or PowerPoint document. You can make the card virtually whatever size you want using the software’s settings. Place the image on one half of the card, so it can be folded in half after it’s printed. Print the card on sturdy stock, fold it and and apply just a little glitter glue to make it sparkle. You can also make your own envelopes or just get some at the dollar store.
Family Love Holiday Wreath
Crafting a holiday wreath is easy and can even be made when your family gets together for Christmas dinner. Here are the supplies you’ll need to have on-hand:
- 1 plain Styrofoam wreath ring (your choice as far as size)
- Green construction paper, cut in the shape of holly leaves approximately four inches long
- Christmas clip art or vintage cards of your choice (between 2 and 4 inches long), printed and cut along the outlines
- Scissors
- Short straight pins
Have family members and guests jot Christmas messages and the date on the holly leaves. Then, stick them to the Styrofoam wreath with the straight pins. Be prepared to adjust the positioning of the leaves a bit to get them to look balanced. The straight pins will make it easy to reposition the elements. (Just make sure to watch the little ones around the straight pins!) When the leaves are all in position on the wreath, pin clip art among the leaves. The result will be a custom wreath that reflects your family’s love every holiday season for a long time to come.
I hope you enjoy making these simple and fun holiday crafts and that you have a joyful holiday!