Everyone loves the attention when you take the time and effort to make Christmas cards or gifts by hand . Here are ideas for hand made Christmas greeting cards inspired by zentangle and mandala patterns. These cards can also be used as gift tags and don’t require much supplies: all you need is a blank card, one or two markers and a bit of patience. They are fun and relaxing to make, even in front of the TV. No skill is necessary, just a bit of time.

You might also like: Fun drawing exercise : Distressed Graphite Postcards

To make zentangle and mandala Christmas cards, you will need:

• Strathmore mixed media cards
• or Strathmore Artist tiles in black
• Sakura pigma micron pens in green or black
• or white opaque marker

I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.

Strathmore Artist Tiles Ideal for pattern drawing and meditative art, these affordable, pre-cut artist tiles by Strathmore help make the process of combining repetitive marks, circles, lines, and forms both fun and easy to learn. – 300 Series Bristol Artist Tiles.

Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media Cards Strathmore’s 400 Series Mixed Media is a heavyweight, 140 lb paper that combines the attributes of a watercolor paper with a vellum drawing finish. Ideal for wet and dry media, these cards accept watercolors, gouache, acrylics, graphite, pen-and-ink, colored pencils, markers, and collage. – 400 Series Mixed Media Cards, Pkg of 100 with FREE Stencil.

Here are some ideas of hand-drawn Christmas cards.

When I want a word to appear inside a pattern, I just draw the contour with a pencil and draw the pattern around.

For these kinds of designs, work from the center and build from it in concentric circles with simple geometric designs.

These are just stripes of the same pattern in different sizes, you could color some of the round shapes to write a word.

For these patterns I am using variations of simple geometric shapes: circles, triangles, cross, dots…

This one is done on black artist tiles with a white marker.  Draw the outline of a Christmas ornament and fill that space with zentangle patterns.

Here I used green Sakura Pigma micron marker.

I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.

Sakura Pigma Micron Pen Pigma Micron pens are acid-free and archival, making them ideal for any application requiring precision and permanance. Pigma ink is derived from a single pigment to ensure color consistency, and is fadeproof against sunlight or UV light. – Set of 6, Black

The two following cards are from designs I found in Joanne Fink book : Zenspirations Dangle designs:

Share links to pictures of the cards you made or your ideas for designs in the comments.