How to Make Wooden Christmas Cards

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Please also watch the video on YouTube about this build and subscribe to my channel!

"Santa" needed some Christmas cards for his friends and relatives, so he put his gear on and occupied my workshop for a while.

If you want to wish to your friends or relatives a merry Christmas, feel free to share this video with them!

I got ask if I want to have a free subscription to FEINSCHNITTkreativ, a German Scroll Saw magazine. This is no paid endorsement and there were no requirement to get this subscription. I was free to use the design in my video, but it is copyrighted by FEINSCHNITTkreativ. The process of making these cards in described in the edition #5/2015.

The material of the Christmas cards is a sheet of 1 mm or between 3/64 inch Baltic birch plywood. I ruff cut it on the band saw and applied the pattern, which I copied 1:1 from the magazine, with a glue stick.

A few things I learned about patterns:
Using a glue stick, the pattern is hard to remove afterwards. Sanding is no option because of the thin plywood. You can remove it with denatured alcohol, but it smells and you need gloves ... it is just inconvenient.

A great solution for that, as described in the magazine, was to use masking tape on the work piece and glue the pattern onto the tape. Masking tape is easy to remove. And with it comes the pattern.

Additionally you can use packing tape over the pattern to give it even more support and lubricate the saw blade during the cut.

After another more or less unnecessary ruff cut on the band saw, I switches to the drill press.

The background of the card had some decoration holes which I did not cut out on the scroll saw. I used my drill press with 4mm (5/32"), 5mm (7/32") and 7mm (1/4") bits to drill out the "stars".

Then I used to the scroll saw to get all the shapes cut out, but you can also use a fret saw or even a coping saw.
There were some thin parts in the pattern which I had to be careful with. I snapped one or two and had to glue them back with regular wood glue. But there were no major issues.

The masking tape worked like a charm so I could then remove the pattern easily. I had to be careful again with the thin parts.
To get smooth edges I just used 240 grid sandpaper. You can also sand the surface but be careful not to sand through the veneer.

To get more contrast, I mixed several shades of the colours and stained the different layers. I used walnut and pine.

Since I had 4 layers I could glue the two at the front and the two at the back simultaneously. In a second step I glue both pieces together. I used regular wood glue.

In the end everything got a few coats of spray lacquer and I sanded the edges.

I made three different types of card. Each differ nor only in their optical design but also in their "functionality".

The first one, the one you can see in the video, has just a simple thin white paper on the back. I attached it with some spray adhesive. You can write your message on this paper. Because of the holes in the back light can shine through the decoration "star" holes.

The second one has a second back and a sliding note layer between it. There you can write down your message, glue some printed banners or use another patters to scroll saw your wished into it.

You can also make a wooden frame for a card and use it as an Christmassy picture. I also glued a white paper onto the back. For the simple frame I used some reclaimed wood.