Recycled Inspiration

I have been sadly behind in my Christmas crafting this year due to a rather nasty cough that had me MIA but now that my strength is returning so is my creativity, and the desire to craft.

I may not have gotten any Christmas cards crafted this year but I think I have Christmas 2008 all sorted and best of all I have all year to work on getting them done.

I love to recycle so I save all my bags, tags, ribbons and bows at this time of the year. In fact the girls and I have agreed we're going to have a 'recycled' Christmas in 2008 so we're not allowed to purchase any 'new' wrap or bags. I actually found this REALLY hard in the sales which is usually when I buy my pretty bags for the next Christmas - I had to pass them all up. Jessica used brown packaging paper and lovely red sheer ribbon with gold text on it this year - they looked so pretty! I wonder where she gets her talent from - hmmm?

This was a 'recycled' bag I used from last year to put a present in for a co-worker. I loved the red and white snowflake design. Red is one of my favourite colours.


Of course I had to remove the tag as it had been written on, but I didn't want to throw it away so I backed it with red cardstock and trimmed around it with scalloped scissors. I even managed to hide that I had to snip it to get it off by re-punching the hole once mounted and adding ribbon.

I added the button for fun and then stamped on a 3 x 3 mini card blank using red ink and a snowflake stamp (Papertrey) for a background.

I used a greeting stamp (Papertrey again) for the inside and stamped my 'handstamped' on the back.

It was only today as I was taking this in to work that I decided to photograph it and I found myself inspired by the design. When I came home today I knew I had to create one of my own.

This is my version. I used the 'faux ribbon' stamp set from - yep you guessed it - Papertrey to create the stripe detail. I used their 'snowflake serenade' set for the JOY and the snowflakes. I used my new oval scallop punch (so glad I got this!) and some scraps of red checked ribbon. What could be simpler!

I love that the entire card is created using stamps - not a bit of patterned paper in sight - and the red and white colour scheme, kinda lends a scandinavian folk art feel to it. I figure I can create all my cards in less than a week - the ovals in an evening, the background squares another evening, cut cards and add elements to them a further evening, insert stamped inserts and add 'handmade' another evening and then make little red handmade envelopes on the fifth evening - cool! I think I'm gonna get these made asap.

I'm making these a 'like it, own it' item so if anyone's interested in ordering any just post me a comment.