Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Selman Family Christmas Tree!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Do you find it hard to select "the perfect" gift for your parents or grandparents or even great grandparents (GGs)?

Well, we did too!

After mailing out all of our Christmas Cards, the GGs, indicated how much they loved it and are displaying it for their neighbours to enjoy too.

An idea "POPPED" into my head, of a nixed idea for this year's Christmas Card.


Recognized this pop-up Christmas Tree? Well, mass producing it was nixed, but creating a large one for the GGs, would be perfect!

In lieu of the regular Christmas ornaments, I replaced it with photos of each member of the family. All 4 generations of us, in ornament form. Now they will have all of us around for the holidays, when we can't all be there at once. There's a lot of us now!


Turned out really well. I printed everyone on vellum paper so it would "pop" when a light is shining through.


I also found at the dollar store, these cute mini snowflake LED lights (battery operated). Perfect for the little tree.


Looks great lite up don't you think?

The best things about this Christmas tree is that it collapse flat, perfect for mailing and storing for future use.


The ornaments can be updated and added to as the kids grow and as the family expands more.

Monday, December 11, 2017

2017 Selman Christmas Cards

Happy Holidays! Season's Greetings!
Wishing you and your family a wonderful time together!

A full year with TWO boys! Where will I find the time to make Christmas cards? Let's not even get ahead of ourselves here, where will I find the time to design a new Christmas Card? It's going to be impossible!

Of course, never say never!

I started thinking about Christmas cards during the summer. Never stuck to any one idea till literally last month. Then voila, a firm idea, all thanks to Silhouette America Design Store! I love this site...I visit it weekly for free cut designs and on sale cut design. Last month, I discovered a new contributor to the Design Store, Love Pop Card, and low and behold they had an amazing 3D pop up steam engine for purchase.


Anyways, after purchasing the cut file and sending it through my Cameo, the train turned out amazing. Don't let it's intricate detailed design deceive you, it not fragile and was quite easy to assemble. Logan loved it. Grabbed it...popped it open....ran to his room to display it prominently on his bed's headboard shelf.

I toyed around with mass producing the train. Nixed it within minutes. Too many pieces to deal with in the limited time I had at my disposal.

I toyed around with the idea of a Christmas tree. Made two small ones that Logan loved immediately, so he hijacked to be part of his train display in his room. I, however, nixed this idea too. It was just missing something and I didn't really have time to tweak it to my satisfaction for mass producing. However, stay tune for how I did end up using this Christmas idea.

So back to the drawing board. I know I really wanted to make a pop-up card this year. I know, sticking to the family love, it has to represent hockey in some form or another.

Eureka! After doodling and freehand cutting, I got the prototype done of this year's annual Christmas card! I showed Richard for a quick approval, then showed Logan and he loved it and want one for ALL his friends! Eek!

Mass production commenced...
...three separate sets of design pieces were made...
...three separate cuts were run through the Cameo...
...careful assembly took place...
...decorations were designed, cut and added...
...custom envelopes were made...

...and voila

A hundred cards were made and sent out to a select list of family & friends. I capped myself at a hundred cards or I would never stop making cards!


First batch (with the majority of the cards) were completed and mailed out just before December 1st, just before international delivery deadline! My international recipients started receiving their cards a week after mailing. Woohoo! Talk about good timing!