Cards & Scraps

These first few days of the Pretty Paper Party have inspired me to use up some of my scraps creating cards. I also flipped through my embellishment notebook and pulled out some older items to use. I made a list of the cards I needed to make for November and December and finished all seven of them, which means I accomplished my goal of handmaking all my cards for family & close friends throughout 2011!

The first three cards were inspired by the Pretty Paper Party's prompt 1 card sketch and use strips of patterned paper, all from my scraps files.

I had a 2005 Creative Memories mini-kit that included a few stickers, a journal box, and two small sheets of patterned paper. I used these items and Shimelle's card sketch from prompt 2 to create this next card.

And finally I pulled out an old Paperkins Collectible Paper Doll (don't ask how long that's been in my stash!) for this last birthday card. I had a piece of cardstock in my scraps that I had misted on and decided it would be perfect for the card base.

I realize that's only five cards, but I'll have to wait until later to share the other two so the recipients don't see them ahead of time.

I had a couple of questions after my paper stash post earlier this week that I wanted to answer here. First, click here to read a previous post about how I store my scraps. I love having this basket of scraps right beside my chair, underneath my craft table. It is so convenient to grab the color I want and find that little extra piece of paper I need to complete a layout or card. The second question was about how I determine where to put my patterned paper, in the drawers where my papers are sorted by color or in my accordion file for speciality papers. In general, most patterned papers go in my color drawers. The accordion file holds new papers (for a little while - if I don't use them soon, they go in the color drawer), die cut papers, vellum, double-sided patterned papers and embossed papers. Eventually if any paper is not used, I'll clean out the accordion file and add it to my color drawers.

I'm so excited to have all my cards made and will be focusing on using some pretty paper on layouts the next couple of days. I've noticed many of you joining me at the Pretty Paper Party - are you enjoying using up some scraps and pretty paper?