Numbers are funny things.
I have a lot of nice round numbers in my life – and I love that. It keeps things very orderly and helps me remember certain milestones. I was born in 1975, and did a whole lot of things in 2000 – got engaged, bought a house, got married. So in 2025 I get to turn FIFTY – and our marriage and our house (at least our contribution to our house) turn 25. Lots of silver and gold anniversaries next year.
A year or two ago I was working on my holiday cards and I was thinking about that big milestone year on the horizon. I remembered that I started my cardmaking tradition in 1999 – which meant that 2024 would mark 25 years. Christmas is on the 25th day of December, so I thought it might be fun to count backwards in time, and post photos of each year’s card until I got back to that first card idea on the 25th – Christmas Day. That led me to the idea of doing a new spin on that original card idea – I’d revisit my snowmen from #1 for #25. That seemed like a brilliant idea until I started listing off the various cards in my mind and the numbers just wouldn’t align. It took quite a while before I realized that this year’s card would actually be #26 – unlike a birthday or anniversary where you start counting at the one year mark, if you are actually making something on that day, then you start at zero and count from there. So I’ve been doing this for 25 years, but my 25th card was sent LAST year. Oh well! I could still make this work – it’s just numbers, after all.
The more I thought about this idea, the more I liked it. My original mailing list was much smaller back then, and after 25 years of this, those original recipients have dwindled in numbers quite a bit. I know my mom saved those snowmen – in fact, she’s kept every one of my cards! – but I’m guessing there might just be a couple still in existence. Plus, I never kept one for myself. I have the template I made, but not a complete set. So I loved the idea of making a new one to set out each year with the decorations.
My first snowmen were pretty small – the envelope was roughly 4″x6″, and this year I decided to use an A7 envelope, which holds a 5″x7″ card. I kept my snow friends to two snow balls – my favorite configuration, and I decided to go a little bigger and bolder on the accessories. I really wanted the woven pieces to feel like they had a texture to them, so I purchased some new paper that looks more like fabric. I cut out some hats and mittens, but they didn’t feel textured enough, so I tried tearing them by hand. That worked. I like to have a variety of different components in my cards – some pieces require precise cutting with an x-acto knife and metal straight edge, but some pieces are punched out, or cut with scissors, or – like this year – torn by hand. Those are nice because I can work on the piles anywhere. I tore lots of paper while sitting in bed talking with M or watching a show with the family.
I found a jar of tiny snowflakes, so I got to make some pretty cute woolen mittens. I really wanted to add some holly leaves – I use them in my cards a lot – and last had a set on the cookie box card. I have a nice stash of leftover glitter paper, so I was set there. I looked for tiny heart glitter, but ended up with some cuter dimensional heart jewels instead. I wanted my snow friends to have a card in hand since this was a celebration of this little ritual of mine.
I fiddled with the colors and the layout, punched out a LOT of little coal eyes and buttons, and cut a mountain of carrot shapes for the noses. I stored all of the parts in different plastic bags until I was ready to assemble.
Once I had my prototype ready, I took a little while to think about how I might make him stand out from that original “vintage” set. Those snowmen had vellum accessories, and so I thought about creating a vellum background behind the snowmen. Blue would have been perfect – especially if I dotted it with snow – but last year’s cards had a blue vellum backdrop covered in tiny stars, so that felt a little too similar to me. So I landed on a lighter sea glass color, and I found some clear sleeves to slide them into. I have sketchbooks full of little sketches that I make throughout the year when I get ideas, and I thought it would be fun to add a sketch component to the cards. I landed on a layout I liked, slid that template into each sleeve, and then, using a white paint pen, began doodling on them. That took a while – probably the most time consuming part of the card. I took them everywhere with me, and completed them one or two cards at a time.
Cutting out the snowmen took awhile as well, so I used my to-do list on the wall as motivation.
The last few years have been pretty frustrating on the postal delivery end. Last year’s card took weeks to arrive – some didn’t show up until late February. This year I tried to tweak my process a bit to hopefully get these cards into auto-sorting piles rather than hand-sorting ones. I also mailed them out earlier this year – eleven days before Christmas. Might be the earliest I’ve ever completed them! I made address labels, and discovered that it takes about five times as long to deal with labels rather than just writing out the addresses on my own. But they turned out cute, and had a little hint on the back side.
The last thing I did this year was design and print the insert. I had a draft letter written this fall, but after the election in November, it felt like I had written it another lifetime ago. So I pushed this task off until the end, and switched the focus back to the process, this ritual – back to the joy. I started collecting images of my old cards – recent ones have long posts on this blog, but any process photos of the oldest cards are long filed away into oblivion. I decided I’d sketch out some favorite details for each card and arrange them into a grid – kind of like a calendar of sorts. I told the origin story of the cards on the back, and included a photo of my mom’s original snowmen at the top.
The past year or two has been interesting – challenging, exciting, strenuous, and exhausting. So many of our normal daily and weekly patterns have been adjusted, but it’s the yearly tradition shifts that have been the hardest to muddle through. In the midst of all the changes, I’ve found myself reflecting on photos from the past twenty-five years a lot. I had forgotten all the big things we’ve done in small spaces and crowded schedules. I had pushed the messes and the mayhem out of those memories. What stayed with me were the moments like this one – colorful, joyful connections with friends and family far and wide, and especially with the extraordinary people I get to share this tall, skinny house with – a house built (and shared) with love. They are my favorite part of any season – and this year they cheered me on more than ever before as these little snowmen came to life.
Cheers to a new year full of big things. My heart is overflowing – so sharing it feels like a perfect way to celebrate.
xoxo, Kristin