I’m not sure what started me making my own Christmas cards. Perhaps it was an attempt to personalize the cards or perhaps merely an attempt to stretch my teacher’s salary, but I do know I started making my own Christmas cards in 1974 with this card:
Having taken photography and calligraphy classes, it wasn’t too hard to make these cards. I was pretty proud of them, but years later I learned most people didn’t realize that I’d made the cards rather than buying them.
I continued to make photo greeting cards for several years but without a wife to insist we needed to send cards to people I didn’t really know, I didn’t send out cards for quite a while. Recently, though, after seeing a number of homemade cards in a craft store, I decided I wanted to try to start making my own cards again.
I’ve been doing so for several years now, as demonstrated by this card:
Though the photo can’t capture the three-dimensionality and texture that I love most about these cards, it does reflect the kinds of cards I’ve been making recently. In a sense, even these cards are mass-produced because I used three store-bought stamps on just the front of this card. Still, there’s enough originality involved that I consider them mine.’
Luckily, I don’t send out nearly as many cards as I used to because each card is an original, and it usually takes several hours to make one I can live with. I often use them to enclose money orders when I just can’t seem to come up with the right present for someone.
Sorry for the money.
I meant to give
a part of myself.