Aloha, all!
This year I sent out almost 100 holiday cards, most of them Christmas cards. No, this is not usually how many I send out. Each year, when Stampin’ Up!’s Holiday Mini Catalog comes out, I pick a few of my favorite stamps, papers and embellishments and make about 40 or 50 cards featuring those products. That’s what I did in 2018. But in 2018, the whole process stopped with the making of the cards. While I had quite a few friends and sister Stampin’ Up! demonstrators encouraging me to make cards – and even joining me to make sure I did! – no one could get me away from the sadness of losing our home and garden to the volcanic eruption earlier in the year.
This year was a lot better, and, as usual, I made about 40 or 50 cards – most of them on my own! While I’m still not fully back into the swing of all things Stampin’ Up!, I did thoroughly enjoy the good feeling of being creative when I had access to my stamping space (see posts about our apartment renovation). So here I was this year with not 40 or 50 cards, but with close to 100 with two years’ worth of cards in my stash. Believe me, I had no problem finding that many names to use up that many cards!
This is one of the cards that I made this year. I made it – actually 4 of them – back in October at the Stamp-a-Stack I attended at the home of my friend, Cheryl Hamilton, who lives on the island of Maui. It was a fun Christmas card to make and send, and I sent all but one out to friends and relatives.
This is the “but one” card. I’m part of a group that shares holiday cards one-on-one, and the person I chose to send a card to specifically asked for either a Hannukah or New Year’s card. At that point, I’d put all my holiday stamps in storage, including the one menorah stamp that’s in my collection. So New Year’s card it was. I looked through my stash to see what I could use as a New Year’s card, and this one called out to me. All I did was to cut out the framed element from the original card, glue it onto another card base, and cut “Happy New Year” with dies from the Word Wishes die set in the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog. (Note that the actual die says, “New Year’s.” It was quite easy to remove the ” ‘s ” from the cut word to get the greeting I wanted.)
Message for today: If you don’t have the right card in your stash for some occasion, use your imagination to imagine what you might do with some other card you’ve already made.
Happy Stamping!
As of the time I’m writing this blog post, the Sip, Sip Hooray Stamp Set and the Sip and Celebrate Dies are still available to purchase. They’re on the Year End Closeout retiring list, though, so their continued availability is not guaranteed. Until the Holiday Catalog ends and while both the stamp set and dies are still available, there is still a 10% discount for purchasing the bundle!
