Christmas Card Display- Guest Post from Lucy Baby Designs

Welcome to Christmas in July! Check out the Holiday Prize Pack giveaway and enter to win a Sharp Crochet Hook and Edging Booklet!

Hey everyone! I’m so excited to be here posting! Thanks Melanie!

So my name is Lauren and I blog over at Lucy Baby Designs and have an Etsy site of the same name.

I LOVE Christmas! What a great idea to get started early. I had so many things planned last year (like this project) that ended up staying in the idea pile for next year.

Well next year has arrived, so this was the first thing I thought of to make for this exciting series.

This Christmas Card display was super simple to make and is adorable! Every year I display my family’s card in our tree, which inspired this project. I wanted it to resemble a Christmas tree.

First thing to do is find a nice big branch. Break off the smaller branches so you are left with one long branch.

Measure your branch and mark where to cut. I used 5 branches 32″, 24″, 16″, 8″, and 4″.

Cut the sections and sand the edges if necessary.

The branch that I used was one that had fallen off of a tree in the wooded are of our yard months ago, so it was nice and dry. If you use one that is fresh off a tree, let the cut pieces dry for a few days. After the sections are dry, spray the entire branch with clear spray paint.

This, by the way, is my FAVORITE craft supply. I use it all the time!

Next, most important step, turn on your Christmas playlist on Spotify. Yeah, that’s right. I was listening to Justin Bieber’s Christmas album.

While the spray paint is drying, cut 16 pieces of ribbon, 6 inches long. I like to decorate in bright colors for Christmas, so I used lime green, hot pink, and turquoise.

As long as you have relatively straight branches this length will work. If you have a crazy wonkey branch, some pieces will be need to be longer or shorter depending.

See what I mean? Most of the branches are straight, but the bottom two have a curve so the ribbon needed to be cut longer than 6″ to reach the branch below. I realize that by putting this picture of an almost finished card holder may through you off a bit, but bear with me. I wanted to show you what I was saying about some ribbons being longer than others.

Now, this is something that I’m crazy neurotic about. I don’t like to have unfinished edges on ribbon. I realize that it will be on the back of the project, and no one will see it, but I’ll know. And it’ll drive me bonkers. Seriously.

So what I do to keep myself from going crazy is put a spot of hot glue on the back side of the ribbon and fold it over so it has a finished edge. Think of it as hemming ribbon with hot glue.

Ok, so now that you have your ribbons, and your branches are dry you can start assembling.

Take one piece of ribbon and make a loop. Start with the smallest branch and hot glue that loop to the top to give you a place to hang your finished masterpiece. Take two pieces of ribbon and glue them on the back side on the ends.

Use these measurements for the rest of branches

8″ branch- Glue one on each end and one in the center (4″)

16″ branch- Glue one on each end, one in the center (8″), one at 4″, one at 12″

24″ branch- Glue one on each end, one in the center (12″), one at 6″, and one at 18″

After all of the individual branches are assembled, arrange the branches in ascending order lining up the middle ribbon all the way down. Glue all of the pieces together.

For the top of the “tree”, I made three 3 dimensional stars that I got from this tutorial. I used card stock in coordinating colors.

I hot glued them together then glued them to the top of the “tree”.

Hang it on the door with a wreath hanger, and attach all of the wonderful Christmas cards you get with wooden clothespins.

Awww, look at that adorable family! That was my family’s card from 2010. Let me just say, finding cards to display so I could get a picture of the finished product was the hardest part of this Christmas in July project!