If I'm not scrapbooking I'm thinking about scrapbooking!
I felt like doing a little paper folding on my Christmas cards this year. So I did some searching on Pinterest for origami tutorials and found this one for a Christmas tree design. I used three squares—3 inches, 2.5 inches, and 2 inches—in various patterns and attached them to some American Crafts cards from their North Pole collection. I really like how they pop off the card when you pull them out of the envelope.
2015 is an El Niño year, and boy, have we felt its effects in Texas! We have seen far more rain than usual so far, but May and June have had epic rainfall numbers (and lots of flooding).
We took these post-thunderstorm photos down at Rattan Creek Park at the end of our street on June 14th. In other summers this creek has been just about nonexistent because we get so little rain here.
I’ve heard a lot of people grumbling about “too much rain,” but I really don’t understand that mentality. When you live through several years of extreme drought conditions, how can you “get sick” of rain? Believe me when I say that we are truly grateful for every raindrop.
I am participating in the Scrap Our Stash sketch challenge #27, which requires you to follow the sketch and then create a card out of the scraps from your layout project. Here is my card, which I will be sending to a college friend of mine:
LAYOUT: Following is the Scrap Our Stash sketch #27. I used patterns from the BasicGrey Kelly Purkey Mon Ami 6×6 paper pad, cut the clouds with my Silhouette and hand-stitched the circle.
CARD: The stamps are Hero Arts, and I hand-stitched the edges.
The images of Christmas carolers from Charles Dickens’ era are so romantic. With this Christmas card I tried to capture that charm.
I cut 1/4-inch strips of patterned paper from Crate Paper’s “Bundled Up” collection to create the background for this card. The vintage carolers are a Silhouette cut file. Easy peasy!
Not every card we send needs to be sweet, right? This one has just a little attitude.
I’ll admit that I don’t make enough cards to send to people I love. I plan to make and mail them, but I usually wait too long and then the moment passes. But not this time!
My brother just went through the frustrating process of searching for a new job. Happily, he was offered and accepted a new position that he started today, and I couldn’t be happier for or prouder of him. New beginnings are so wonderful…
I used a few stamps from the “Cyber cafe” set from Paper Smooches, colored the coffee cup with Copic markers and embellished with paper from Little Yellow Bicycle.
The inside of our cards is stamped with this quote from Elf: The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.
So, the cards I designed this year to send to friends and family seemed like a nice, simple concept. One that I wrongly assumed wouldn’t take much time to put together. Oh, what a silly girl I am! Since when has making my Christmas cards ever been a simple task? Why did I think this year’s design would be different? Because I am an optimist, which is not the best attribute to have when trying to tuck projects like this in among all the other tasks at this time of year!
Well, they’re finished and mailed, and I’m happy with them. Merry Christmas from the Daquila-Pardos!
I used a cut file from the Silhouette store to make the white artisan-shaped front piece of the card. Then I embossed it with the Cuttlebug “Snowflakes” embossing folder and added it to an A2 card base with foam adhesive over a bit of patterned paper (various patterns and brands). The inside of each card is stamped with this fun quote from the movie, Elf: “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.”