I’m going to use this post to write about a hobby I have that I don’t believe I’ve written about before: card making. I know I’ve written about how important my grandparents were to me growing up. My dad and I lived with them after he and my mom divorced, and after we moved out, I would still spend summers with my gram while my pap worked. When I was in fifth and sixth grade, they moved to become caretakers of a church camp. My gram served as head of the food service department, while my pap was one of the maintenance workers. Them working at a church camp meant I could no longer spend summers at their house, since that’s when they had the most campers, but it also meant that the camp was free over Christmas break. I look back on that time period with fondness because it meant five or six days of uninterrupted time with them, and I got to learn so much from them.

I think I have mentioned before how important my pap was to my woodworking journey, or if I haven’t, I will in the future. But my grandma has been equally inspirational in other areas of my life. She’s one of the reasons I love to bake and cook as much as I do. She used to let me create my own disgusting concoctions in the kitchen, mixing spices, oils, and other liquids to see how things turned out. And she would taste-test everything I came up with. Looking back, I have no idea how she kept a straight face because there’s no way it was good. She also taught me how to cross-stitch and make homemade greeting cards.

A Little About My Grandma

Growing up, I thought my grandparents could do anything. My pap worked in construction. He was tough enough to build homes in the middle of winter and delicate enough to do fine woodworking. My gram remains the best cook and baker I’ve ever been around. She could throw together incredible filling meals for holidays and then serve the best pies you’ve ever tasted for dessert. I think if she had been born in the 1960s instead of the early 1940s, she may have pursued cooking in a professional setting.

Funny enough, I don’t actually know what she wanted to be when she grew up. I am aware of some of the jobs she held, though. She worked at a textile factory (known locally as the sewing factory) making robes for L.L. Bean when my dad was in his early 20s. She later worked as a cook at a bed & breakfast in our town when they would have special events. She also worked as a postal worker at our local post office and was encouraged to pursue the postmaster role but decided not to. As mentioned before, she also worked as the head cook at a church camp and retreat center before fully retiring, but she wasn’t done serving. She later volunteered at a non-profit thrift store and worked at her local voting location on election day.

Growing up, she crocheted and sewed, baked and cooked, and even gardened. She would do sudoku and word searches, and then, seemingly randomly, she picked up card making as a hobby when I was in late elementary school or early middle school.

Learning to Make Cards

My grandparents primarily lived in three houses while I was growing up. There was a duplex they lived in from the time I was a little kid until late elementary school age. That’s also the house my dad and I lived in with them. From there, they moved to the church camp. And after retiring from the church camp, they lived in the former manse or parsonage of the church my family attended. I could be wrong about this, but I barely remember my grandma making cards in the first house I mentioned.

She had a craft room on the second floor that was directly above the kitchen. It was a small room, probably 6 feet by 8 feet, and it’s where she kept her sewing machine, yarn, threads, patterns, and more. Along the top of the walls, she hung a shallow shelf that ran nearly the perimeter of the room, and I remember her placing wooden stamp blocks on it. On one end wall, she also had a five- or six-row shelf that was only a couple of inches deep that was full of stamps.

When they moved, she recreated that craft room in their apartment at the church camp. It was similarly sized, but it also had this 8-foot table that was a perfect work surface. This is when I started experimenting with card making. During one of the week-long trips to visit them, the four of us (my grandparents, brother, and me) would often stay up late. My brother and pap would hang out in the living room, while I would spend time in my gram’s crafting room with her. Because she was always quick to share things with her grandkids, she either asked me if I wanted to make cards with her or I asked her if I could make someone a birthday card. She opened up her entire toolbox of stamping supplies: cardstock, pattern paper, stamps, ink, embossing glitter, embossing gun, etc. I was immediately hooked, and I distinctly remember staying up until 1 a.m. or later making cards and talking with her. I returned home from that trip with cards for all occasions.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have many more opportunities to make cards with her. She’s still alive; it’s nothing like that. But they only lived at that camp for a few years, and I moved away from my dad’s. I also didn’t have the equipment or supplies to make cards on my own, so I dropped the hobby for years. Then, in 2020, I got back into it out of nowhere.

After the most severe lockdowns were lifted in Pennsylvania, Magz and I were in the Erie Hobby Lobby that fall. At this point, she was aware that my grandma made homemade cards and probably knew that I used to make some with her. As we were walking through the store, we came across the card-making supplies, and she suggested that we buy supplies to send cards to bring joy during a very difficult time. So, that’s what we did.

We started with a pretty bare-bones amount of supplies: a pack of Christmas cardstock, a pack of beige cardstock, some pattern paper, a small pack of stamps, a few colors of ink, cleaning spray, glue, and maybe a cutting tool. That year, we made 50-plus cards for a local nursing home that would be handed out to its residents. We also send cards to family members and friends, and we’ve sent Christmas cards to at least a dozen or so people each year since. In the years since getting back into the hobby, we’ve certainly accumulated more supplies: more stamps, ink pads, paper, and a cutting mat. My gram also sent me dozens of stamps, ink pads, and patterned scissors one year, so now I have a lot of her supplies, and all the stamps have her initials on them, so I’ll treasure them forever.

Why I Love Making Cards

It may be surprising that my hobbies include woodworking and card making, but they aren’t all that different. I really enjoy both hobbies for similar reasons. They both provide the opportunity to express creativity. I love how I can make Christmas cards for 25 households, and none of them are identical. I used to make every card each Christmas season unique, but that has become a bit more difficult as I run out of ideas or don’t have the time. But even when I bulk craft cards and make four of the same design at one time, each card is unique.

I also love exploring how to create unique ways to open the cards. I’ve experimented with making envelopes that the cards slide out of, having an opening flap centered on the front of the card, and making cards that aren’t rectangular. It can be so much fun.

But honestly, my favorite part of making cards is bringing joy to people. We were able to bring so much joy to the nursing home residents during an incredibly difficult time period, and that bug bit me. We live in a time period where there is so much focus on digital, so people really appreciate analog mediums, such as cards. It’s been awesome to connect with people through cards. We were able to send a couple of cards to Magz’s grandparents before they passed away, and her grandma adored a piano-inspired card we made for her.

Finally, I love making cards because it connects me to my grandma. After spending so much time with her growing up, I didn’t spend as much time at her house after I started high school. Moving away meant distance, time, and focus all kept me away and caused me to feel disconnected from them. But now, anytime I make cards or woodwork, I instantly feel connected to them. I’m transported back to being in my pap’s woodshop or my gram’s crafting room, and that makes me happy.

This post idea came to mind because I made two cards over the past couple of days. Magz’s parents will celebrate their anniversary soon, and our friend from college recently had her first child with her husband. The second card is a pretty straightforward congratulations card, but the anniversary card is pretty unique. Instead of a celebration image, I used a “Deepest Sympathy” message on the front to bring a hint of dark humor to the card. And that’s another thing I love about making cards. Because I know the recipient, I can make a card that is unique to them. My in-laws will understand the humor and find it funny, but I wouldn’t send that to my dad and stepmom because their humor isn’t the same. I really enjoy being able to relate to people on such a deep level.

And to close out the post, here are some of the cards I’ve made.