Christmas Cards...the rest (and my return from blog purgatory...)

With a giant, stressful move & getting settled into our new home, then the immediate onset of the holiday season, I just have not been able to touch my little ol' blog in a sad amount of time! Now that the New Year is here, I want to try to get back into posting regularly again (and making cards regularly again!) I've already completed some cards for a couple challenges this week, in addition to sending out some cards that needed to go out, so yay! I just thought I'd quickly add the rest of the Christmas cards I did this past season before I move on to other things (like Valentines!) I think I may have forgotten to take pictures of some of them (oh well), but here are the rest that I ended up squeezing out at the last minute! :)

A set of cards using Holiday Lights (Papertrey)...I varied the color of the lights based on some color challenges that Nichole posted on her blog around Christmas time (boy is this old news by now!) Anyway, I loved the clean, crisp way they turned out.















I grabbed up one of the new sets by Papertrey this year, Gingerbread Lane, at kind of the last minute, so I really wanted to pull off some cards with it this year (rather than having to wait a whole year - or so - to use it!), so I made these three...







I love making the same card but varying it just enough to satisfy my desire for variety, yet by doing the same layout, I get more done faster. Such fun!

I've had Friendship Jar Holiday Fillers for forever, but had never used the Christmas trees...I saw a really cute card by Nichole ( I think) where she put the trees on sticks (like the sticks used for candy apples in the Fall Fillers set)...I thought it was so cute so I wanted to try it. Changed it up quite a bit from what she did, but the idea is the same. I made a couple of them (again, for variety!)





Lastly, I had just a little bit of paper left from the sei Christmas Mint collection that I used on most of my cards this year. Oftentimes, with 12x12 paper, you get sheets that are really designed more for scrapbooking than cardmaking, as the design is large and fills the whole page. I try to challenge myself to cut the page up creatively so that I can use it on my cards and make it work! That's what I did with these last couple cards...it made for very quick and very cute cards! :)


w/Just Rite Stampers "O Christmas Tree" set.


Sentiment from Bells & Boughs (PTI)


Here's an interior detail of the above card. I love how it turned out. I used a set called "Christmas Wishes" by Stampendous.

That's about it. Happy New Year! ;)