Back to flowers, again

When all else fails, crafty-inspiration-wise, go back to flowers.

These flowers were created from My Favorite Things' Stitched Flowers Dies. The centers on most of the flowers are Nuvo drops.

The greenery is cut with Paper Smooches' Foliage 1 and 2 dies. The Darice embossing folder with the text has been in my stash for a while, and the lumpy embossing folder is from Sizzix. The sentiments have been in my desk cup for a while also.

So, over the weekend I ordered ANOTHER Christmas card kit.  While I was on the site I also ordered more embossing folders and a few small die sets.  One of the sets I ordered is for layered flowers, and since I can't wait for them I pulled out these cuties from MFT and started layering them up. I hope I don't burn out before the new set gets here.

The card kit was ordered because I couldn't figure out any other way to get the particular die that comes with it any other way. I'm a little obsessed, I think. I took a few minutes to finally put the parts of the "Merry Everything" kit back in it's box, where it can rest until next time I need to do a bunch of Christmas cards.  I have enough for the next 3 years already, but who's counting?

Maps make great masculine cards.

I used up the rest of the Florida map pages from my very old 12 x 12 paper pad. I even cut out one of North Carolina, since my brother owns a cabin there. Fun fact :  the mountains in North Carolina are so full of Floridians in the summer that it is sometimes referred to as "Upstairs Florida". 

 

I used up the last of the navy card bases from the Paper Studios card set, and cut both the maps and red mats using a Sizzix rectangle die with perforated edges.  The sentiment is from Spellbinder's Favorite Fonts sentiments which was from the December small die of the month.

I can always use more "thank you" cards.

The geotag die is from an old Mama Elephant die set called "Index Card".  It is roughly positioned at the small town I grew up in, Bartow.

Say Freeze Craft Smart paper pad

Just before Christmas I took one last trip to Michael's and bought several 12 x 12 paper pads. I know I shouldn't have, but the images on "Say Freeze" really called to me so I did it.  I already had the 6 x 6 version of the same paper, I just had to have the bigger one, too.

The poinsettias are from the smaller paper pad, and the outside sentiment is from Queen & Co's Special Delivery kit. The inside sentiment is from Avery Elle's "Comfort & Joy" sentiment set.  The die cut poinsettia on the front is a Sizzix die that came with a pillow box die. The inside of the flowers are embellished with copper colored Nuvo drops.

Here's the real reason I needed the larger paper pad.  There is this wonderful image of snowmen driving a red pickup truck.  It's larger, covering the front of these two 5 x 6.5" cards.  The "Merry Christmas" die is from Kat Scrappiness, cut once from gold card stock and once from cream card stock, and layered together, a little offset.

On the inside of the card I layered another piece of patterned paper and the same sentiment as above from Avery Elle. The inside sentiment is on a panel cut with a scalloped die from Gina Marie Designs.

This second truck card features the "Fa La La" die and shadow from Simon Says Stamp.  The little sentiment, "Make it jolly, so jolly" is silver embossed from a sentiment set from Scrapbook.com called "Make it Jolly".

The inside sentiment is from an old Hero Arts set CL359 from 2012.  It's embossed in silver, with a couple of snowflake stamps that I can't immediately identify. 

So, I don't need anymore Christmas cards, but I've decided not to stop making them because, I don't want to stop.

Old paper pads need love, too!

This group of cards features an old 12 x 12 paper pad from Michael's that is about 4 to 5 years old.  It's one of those pads that I keep because I'm "going to use it someday", but it's never the right one, right now.

The card bases for these are larger, 6.5 x 5, and have been in my stash since about 2009.  Yup, 10 years they've been carefully stored, stashed, and moved around from one shelf to another in my craft room. Can't blame Mimi for these because I remember buying them before I found out that "everybody" does A2 cards.

So, the plaid backgrounds are from the old plaid paper pack, and the " Love Peace Joy" is a cut-apart from the same pack.  The "Happy Holidays " banner is from a die from Concord and 9th.

The poinsettias on the cards are from an old Spellbinders die, and the poinsettias on the side are new this year from Sizzix. The twigs are from Gina Marie Designs, and are a classic to me.  The Sizzix flowers will eventually get onto cards, but now they make good photo props.  

The center panel from this card is from a cut-apart from a newer paper pad called "Say Freeze" from Michael's.  The gold snowflakes are from a Spellbinder's Small Die of the month club die for November 2019.  This one is A2 sized. Yes, I really do like to mix in new with the old to give it better life.

Yes, it appears I'm still avoiding coloring. Oh well.