Christmas Card Design (Machine Stitched)

I have (finally) started making my Christmas Cards. I wanted to make them without buying too much, so I decided to look through the craft supplies I already have and utilise what I had there - waste not, want not!!

 I did buy card blanks, but other than that all I used for this design was some scrap material I had and some thread.

What You Need
Card Blanks (If you want to use my measurements, the cards need to be 5" x 7")
Material (feel free to use a festive design)
Sewing Machine
Thread in a contrasting colour to your material
Some scrap card
Scissors, Ruler and Pencil
Blue Tack
A Customisable Stamper (Or 'Happy Christmas' stickers)

Method
Draw out a template for the design you want to stitch into your card. I chose a Christmas Tree simply because it is all straight lines, with no curves or curvy corners. This is purely because my sewing skills are limited and I'm better at straight lines.

You can see the measurements I used written on the photo below.

Cut this template out and just make sure it sits nicely on your Card blanks.

Next, cut out rectangles of your material. These should fit onto the card blanks with a border all the way around, and with a thicker border at the bottom for your festive message. Mine were 10cm wide and 13.5cm tall.

Open the card out and, with a contrasting colour thread to your material, sew straight lines all around the edges of the material, using the needle as a pivot on the corners. 

Once the rectangle is secured into place, blue tack your tree template into the middle of the card to hold it still. (I did try to pin this on but I couldn't get the pin through the card easily). I would check with your particular material that the blue tack does come off and doesn't mark or stain it before using.

Once your tree is secure, the next step is to sew around the outline of the tree, using the template as a guide. You should not need to sew through the card (although I did graze the egdes of my template a few times with the needle - this caused no problems... what you want to avoid is sewing the template to the card!).

Whenever you reach a corner, hand wind the machine so that the needle is firmly in the card. You can then lift the foot and pivot the card around the needle to ensure your template/card doesn't move out of place. This gives a good clean line of stitches.

Once you've stitched around the tree design, remove the template and gently rub off any blue tack. I then put a further line of zig-zag stitching around the border to try and prevent too much fraying (a little fraying is desirable though... after all your hard work, you want it to look handmade right?!!)

The final step to finish off the cards is to stamp it with a Merry Christmas/Happy Christmas Motif or place a similar sticker in the bottom right area of the card... et Voila!!