Thanks to the digitized editions of older Popular Mechanics magazines from Google Books, ideas for creative Christmas cards are available to read online for free. Popular mechanics offered readers suggestions for unusual Christmas cards, so break out the potassium nitrate and get ready to made creative, unique Christmas greeting cards to send this year. The highlighted phrases in this article take you directly to the referenced pages in the magazines.
Unusual Christmas Card Idea: Make a Burning Christmas Card
If there is one article to read on designing a Christmas card that no one expects to see, it is " Say It with Christmas Cards: Block Prints, Cut-Outs, Envelopes, Novelty and Photographic Cards Made at Home " from the December, 1937 issue of Popular Mechanics. These handmade Christmas cards take a lot of work, but are unique and creative Christmas greetings.
Between the ads for the 1938 Plymouth and the Remington portable typewriter are suggestions on how to make a scroll Christmas card, how to make a homemade press to emboss cards, and how to make creative envelopes for Christmas cards. Popular Mechanics also offered instructions on how to construct a Christmas card that reveals its message when it is set on fire.
To make a burning Christmas card, write the words on the card in sodium nitrate. "The writing solution is made by dissolving potassium nitrate as possible in a quarter-full glass of hot water, adding one or two pinches of gum arabic as a bond." After the Christmas card is delivered, the recipient gently lights the star on the Christmas tree on the card, and then the spark follows the words lights up the invisible writing.
Beautiful Christmas Card: Design a Christmas Triptych
There are several Christmas card craft projects in School Arts, a 1903 guide for elementary school teachers. One beautiful Christmas card project idea is to make a Christmas triptych card that has three images. The instructions suggest writing "Christmas 1903," but a "Merry Christmas" card indicating that it is the 21st century might be more up-to-date.
School Arts also has suggestions on how to make a triptych out of wood, which would not be a Christmas card but could be a pretty Christmas gift. School Art is in the public domain, so the Christmas arts and craft instructions can be downloaded from Google Books as a pdf file and the patterns can be printed.
Some magazines have suggestions that are even easier with modern technology, such as gluing photographs on the triptych card. Instead of having to draw pictures, people can just print digital photos. Exploring older issues of magazines is a good way to revive ideas that have fallen out of fashion, especially novelty ideas.
Sources
"Say It with Christmas Cards: Block Prints, Cut-Outs, Envelopes, Novelty and Photographic Cards Made at Home" was written by the Popular Mechanics Staff. The article is on pages 921-927 of the December 1937 issue, Vol. 68, No. 6. The ISSN is 0032-4558. Popular Mechanics is published by Hearst Magazines
School Arts, Volume 3 was published in 1904 by Davis Publications. There is no additional publication information.
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Alex Sharp - Alex Sharp is a teacher who has been keeping Suite101 readers up to date with the latest in audio- and e-book gadgetry since 2008.
