I'm a big fan of holiday cards. And end-of-year wrap-up letters. There's been a lot of buzz lately about how no one is doing cards this year, either because of the cost, the paper waste, or because we're in frequent contact with each other via Facebook. Those are all valid arguments, but I still get a little thrill when I see a hand-addressed pretty envelope in my mailbox amidst the bills and junk, so I'm not ready to give up this tradition quite yet.
That being said, this year's card was a bear. I started out with a great idea (not mine, more on that later) and the whole thing snowballed into this monstrous project that I really didn't have time for. I love how it turned out, but I vow that next year's card will be much simpler.
Before I get too far, I have to give credit to my dear friend Mike, Mr. Sleepless in Sandy, for the "Favorite Things" idea. He was discussing his own card ideas on, yep, Facebook. I had been struggling to come up with a holiday card design, but as soon as I heard the phrase "favorite things," I got an immediate picture in my head and ran with it. (With Mike's permission, of course, to steal his idea.)
Cute, eh?
I like it.
It opens up to reveal our holiday letter.
For the trees on the front cover, I recycled some cardstock I had already cut into triangles. Any guesses where they came from? If you've been reading for the last two months, you've seen them before.
Here's a hint:
Yep! It was the garland from the baby shower. I knew when I was taking the garland down that they would make perfect abstract little evergreen trees. I decided to just use the green ones, as the brown ones were a bit of a stretch as a "tree." I'll find something to do with the brown ones. . . I never waste anything.
* * *
The other day, Hubs decided he needed some cards for his work buddies without the family letter portion. So I took some other scraps and quickly sewed them onto cards.OK. Seriously? It took me 10 minutes to make 7 cards and I like this card just as much as the labor of love above. This is going on my list of "potential super simple 2011 card ideas."
Happy Christmas to all that celebrate.
Happy weekend to all that don't.
Happy new year to all of you.
Thank you for reading, and commenting.
You are all very, very special to me!
See you in 2011.
