How To Make Selvedge & Fabric Christmas Cards

Making your own cards can be economical and fun, and it's a great way to use up fabric scraps and selvedges. Today, I'm making Christmas cards, but you can easily adapt the technique to make cards for any occasion.

How To Make Selvedge and Fabric Christmas Cards

Disclaimer:

This post is for informational purposes only; no payment or commission is received on click-throughs to links shared.
All materials are mbCD's own.

Materials: 

Scrap fabric—I'm using 5" squares, so Christmas charm packs are ideal. If your scraps are smaller than this, you can sew them together to make them up to this size. I'll also give you details of how to work with other sizes.

Cardboard - I'm using bought blank card/envelope sets in 3 different styles/sizes, but you can just as easily fold your own card stock and use standard envelopes.

water based glue stick

Optional Materials: 

thread and embellishments

printer paper for printing inserts

PVA glue (see later diagram for more info)

Cards: 

These are the 3 card styles I'm working with. You can buy these in packs from craft stores such as Michaels (US), The Range (UK), and many similar outlets.  

Brown and Red cards - 5-1/2" x 4" (140 mm x 100 mm)

White card - 8-1/4" x 5-3/4" (210 mm x 147 mm)

Prepping Fabric: 

Let's talk a little about prepping the fabric before cutting. I'm a huge fan of raw-edge applique, so I've not prepped the fabric at all. If you're not in love with a fraying edge, then I have the answer for you.  

Many years ago, when studying textiles, I was taught to coat fabric with a 50/50 mix of PVA glue and water to prevent fraying. Here's how to do it. 

I cut (10) 5" squares so I'd have a range of prints to choose from. As you get 8 triangles from each square, this gave me 80 triangles. This was too many triangles for my needs, though you may be making more cards than me, and I have lots left over for next year!

How To Cut Fabric Isosceles Triangles: 

This is how to quickly make fabric isosceles triangles that represent Christmas Trees.   I first saw this technique in a video by Katie @The Crafty Blog Stalker when she cut cardstock for bunting - How To Cut 8 Pennant Pieces Out Of 1 Sheet Of Cardstock.  I knew this would be really useful for cutting fabric triangles, too - and it is.  If you'd like to see a video of how Katie uses this technique to cut cardstock, here is the link; I will show you how to cut fabric using the same method in photos.

Smaller print designs work well, and I'm using a 5" square, which will give me (8) 2-1/2" high triangles.  You can use any size square to suit the height of your card, and here's the maths to calculate your triangle sizes:

The height of the triangle will be half the size of the square:

10" square = (8) 5" high triangles

6" square = (8) 3" high triangles

4" square = (8) 2" high triangles.

NB: This cutting technique doesn't work well for directional fabrics. If you want to use a directional fabric or a particular part of a fabric design, I suggest making a template from clear plastic and fussy-cutting each triangle individually.  

A 'No-Sew' Fabric Christmas Card:

Play around with layout designs on your card, then glue in place with a water-based glue stick - I love Elmer's Disappearing purple as I can see exactly where I've applied the glue, and then it 'disappears' :D

So the fabric's in place - what next?

Well, you can keep things really simple and leave your cards just as they are, or you can start to embellish your work.

No sewing is involved, so I've glued a 'jewel' to the top of each triangle.  

And here I've glued sequins.

How To Sew A Fabric Card: 

On the card below, I've scribble stitched around the triangles using my free-motion foot, but you can just as easily use a straight stitch and pivot at the triangle corners.  

As I start and end sewing, I create a machine knot and then snip my threads away against the card surface. Your machine may have a machine knot function—mine does—but it likes to take a stitch forward before creating the knot. Here's how to create an 'On The Spot' machine knot without using this function.

If you have a straight stitch-only machine, you can turn the straight stitch length to 0 to create this knot.

If you've used a large card and have a small sewing machine harp/throat, take care not to damage your card against the machine when stitching your fabric in place—free-motion stitching eliminates this potential problem totally.

Never sewn paper or card before? It's super easy - just like sewing fabric but here are my tips to keep life simple:

This is how the inside of the card will look after sewing.

I'm happy to leave my cards looking like this, but you may want to glue a piece of paper over the card inside page to cover the stitches.

Making A Selvedge Fabric Card: 

I've shared how I make selvedge fabric with you before - you'll find my tute here:

This time, I'm using all Christmas fabric selvedges and some red and green selvedges, too. Rather than batting, I've used a piece of muslin as my foundation to reduce the thickness.

 

I've trimmed my finished selvedge fabric square down to 8" so I can make (*) 4" high isosceles triangles using the technique I shared above.

I glued a triangle to the centre of one of my white cards with a framed outer section.

I free-motion scribble-stitched the triangle to the card and added a sewn trunk to the tree.

 

This is a 'no-sew' version of the same card with a glued silver star.

Be careful not to make the same mistake I did on this card. I think this one will have to go to a left-handed friend, as the opening is on the wrong side!

 

The final version is half fabric and half stitching, using a scrap section left over from cutting the 8 triangles from the selvedge fabric square.

Adding A Paper Insert: 

I've created paper inserts for my cards by printing holiday phrases onto white standard printer paper and using Free Style font to create text.  For the 5-1/2" x 4" (140 mm x 100 mm), my paper insert is 5" x 7-1/4" (127 mm x 184 mm) folded in half.

I ran a line of glue stick down the fold line on the reverse of the text side - you can just about see the purple line of glue down the left side of the white paper below -

The paper insert and card fold lines were pressed together.

 

  Today, I shared the simplest fabric card technique so you can see how quick and easy it is. Obviously, there are many ways you can develop this technique further to create stunning individual cards that no one will want to throw away when Christmas is over!

Tips For Developing Your Ideas: 

So now you know 

How To Make Selvedge & Fabric Christmas Cards

Isn't it easy?!  Will you be making your own Christmas and Holiday cards this year?

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Disclaimer: 

This post is for informational purposes only; no payment or commission is received on click-throughs to links shared.

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