Are you thinking of making your own festive greetings this year? If so we’ve got five great handmade Christmas card ideas for you to try with uni-ball pens.

A handmade festive greeting is a lovely, thoughtful thing to give to loved ones. They are also a great activity to practice with kids . It’s a fun, engaging way get them involved in the festive prep plus their crafty creations will be treasured by the whole family.

You don’t have to be a superstar artist to make special seasonal creations. Our handmade Christmas card ideas are easy to recreate either by simple techniques or by using templates. So pick your favourite and get card-making…

Handmade Christmas card ideas 1: Simple stars

We’ve all doodled simple stars and really that’s all this card is – a cluster of basic star doodles. What makes it special is the choice of pens and colours. Seriously, choosing the right tool to make your mark and employing a good colour way can do half the job for you.

We used white, gold and silver SIGNO gel pens on red card for this simple festive greeting. The great things about these pens is they dry opaque with a solid colour coverage. This means the pens sit great on coloured card. We think the combination of rich metallics and whites on a warm red background give this easy greeting a friendly festive feel.

Simple Christmas greetings 2: HO HO HO!

You can achieve great artistic effects with the uni-EYE pen. Just check out what we’ve done here with the EYE broad.

Because the EYE broad creates such a strong, robust line it’s great for bold and expressive drawings and hand-lettering. And because its ink coverage is so solid and smooth, it works a treat on surfaces such as kraft card – a fashionable choice for contemporary card-makers.

This simple, but very effective festive greeting idea employs very basic lettering, doodling and colouring techniques. Grab your EYE pens and see what handmade Christmas card ideas you come up with.

Festive greeting idea 3: Snowy penguin

Artists love working with uni-PIN fine line pens. The choice of PIN nib sizes gives you total control and precision in when mark making. You can use these pens with watercolours too, as these beauties are waterproof and fade resistant. This makes the pens an ideal option for cool, artistic card making.

Why not try mixing watercolour and PIN by having a go at this snowy penguin greeting? Simply follow the instructions below…

1. Save and download the penguin template below to trace and transfer your fluffy penguin motif onto a white card blank.
   
2. Fill in the dark areas of your bird with a brush PIN pen. Apply light washes of blue watercolour to the penguin and light grey over the penguin’s bill.
3. Once the watercolour is dry use the light and dark grey 0.1 pens and 0.03 and 0.1 black PINs to create fine gestural lines on the bird’s body and face. Use the a 0.5 black Pin to draw in the eyes as shown.
4. Use the light grey 0.1 pen to draw in the snowflakes. To do so, make a cross, then make two diagonal intersecting lines over the cross. Then embellish the intersecting lines with dashes, dots and heart shapes as shown to make snowflakes.

Handmade Christmas card ideas 4: Text tree

As we know, PIN fine line drawing pens work great with watercolour. We’ve made a simple Christmas tree design in watercolour then used our PINs to write a seasonal message over the illustration. We also highlighted this design with gold and white SIGNO pens.

Wanna try it yourself? Check out this project and more watercolour and PIN pen handmade Xmas greetings on the Crafts Beautiful website here.

Xmas greetings 5: Classic bauble with a contemporary twist

We love EMOTT pens. Not only are the great for journaling and colouring in, they are amazing for contemporary card-making. With a choice of 40 gorgeous shades, you can discover a seasonal colour-way to suit your style.

Take a look at how we made our EMOTT Christmas greeting in the video below…