A Curio Christmas

A few weeks back i spent the day at my friend Karen's house for yet another fantabulous play date.  Along with three other crafty friends we enjoyed Karen's gracious hospitality and all created dozens of Christmas cards.  I got off to a quick start with this kit i picked up at Ross (of all places).  It is the Curio collection from Basic Grey papers.  I just loved the assortment of vintage patterns mixed with flowers, birds and butterflies.

Here are how the 8  cards looked made almost exactly like the kit!  Needless to say  - i was WAY ahead of my friends, although it wasn't really fair since all my pieces were pre-cut!

 

Because i loved the papers so much, before the play date i ordered a 12x12 kit from the same collection online. It came with some matching stickers and borders, and even a page of letters.

What i loved most about these papers is that they were DOUBLE -SIDED! - think what cool cards these would make!  (the card kit above, is NOT double sided, they are plain white inside, but still quite nice!)

You had to think hard about which side to put on the outside they were so darn pretty.

I did a bunch of 8 x 4" tall cards.

And i did some 5 x7", a couple of squares.  Since i had an assortment of envelopes, figured i would mix it up!

As you can imagine, created cards out of 12 x 12" paper leaves alot of nice scraps.  Check out this lovely pile!

 So, i had no choice but to make more cards!  I used a stack of pale olive green card stock Lucie gave away at the play date to create standard 5 x 7" folded cards.

 I paired up two or three coordinating patterns amongst the 24 or so cards.

 Then i glued them all on in a pleasing patchwork.  Perhaps not the most "christmas-y" of pallets, but the soft pinks, greens and browns all worked so nicely with the card stock.

 Then i added embellishment with stickers, lace, birds, butterflies and flowers.  On some i added "merry christmas in copper embossing, but i found melting the embossing powder caused the cards to curl and separate.

 When i counted up all my cards i had about 50 - but i need 60-70 to cover my annual christmas card list.  So i turned to this cute bird themed kit i picked up at Anthropologie.

 It contained 24 postcards, three rubber stamps, red ink, and a stack of cute stickers.

I used plain cream card stock, folded in an 8 x 4" card.  I bordered the postcards on some more scrap Curio paper and glued to the top of the card.  On the bottom i added a snippet of sheet music and some ribbons and more embellishment.

 I would have LOVED to add three dimensional objects like buttons and charms to these cards, but in the interest of safe (and cheap) mailing, i went with all flat embellishment.  Now i just have to write a personal note inside each one, stamp and address the envelopes and we're done for another year!