Crafty Christmas

Each year for the past six, I've hosted a holiday cookie swap. Everyone bakes six dozen cookies, and goes home with six dozen assorted cookies to gift to others or eat (unfortunately, it always seems to be the latter for me. Wha WHA.). The big swap is this Sunday, and I've been working on a crafty project to give as favors.

First, I bought a couple of vintage postcards. My criteria was (1) old and (2) cheap. I scanned and printed on off-white paper to give it a little "oomph" (that's technical crafty speak for upping the vintage quotient), but regular white paper worked just fine, too.

Then, I mounted on very thick board. The thickest I found was about $5, but it was enough to use for 22 postcards. I left a a small border around the art so I could go back and trim once the glue dried (so the corners wouldn't start to turn up).

I applied glittery borders and used a fine tipped paint brush to add some sparkly highlights to the art.

As the glue dried, I did notice the boards were curling up a bit. This is where having an old house with random old house parts comes in handy. Once the glitter was totally dry, the cards spent the next 24-hours under a vice corbel:

Flat as a pancake!

Now I've got an assortment of glittery goodness...some with small hooks to hang on a tree or a the wall:

And others with larger loops to hang on doorknobs:

The great cookie swap is this weekend. I'll be baking my (semi) famous biscotti, and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures so you can join in the revelry, which tends to just look a lot like this: