The charity where I donate most of my cards has already started to package and ship fall/winter cards – Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.  It was a bit difficult to get in a cold weather mood since summer is just starting, but once I pulled out some Christmas papers and stamps I was able to get going.

For the first 3 cards I pulled out some blue and lavender snowflake paper that’s been in my scrap stack for quite some time.  It’s not the traditional red and green Christmas colors, but it has a nice wintery look. For some sparkle I added lavender glitter to accent the snowflakes.

I then switched to paper from the Recollections Christmas paper pad.  It’s a huge paper pad that I’ve had for years and no matter how much paper I use, the paper pad never seems to shrink in size.  I used the same layout for the next 4 cards.  I think it’s amazing how different cards can look just by using different papers.

I still had some of the stocking paper left, so pulled out a green snowflake paper to pair with it.  Instead of using the stocking paper as a single piece, I cut it into 3 strips and matted them on a piece of green cardstock.  To finish the card I added a small “happy holidays” sentiment.  I liked the look so much I decided to make a few more cards in a red theme.

I still had some of the red and green snowflake papers left so I paired them with the ornament paper.  To separate the prints, I used a scallop border punch on the matting for the ornament paper.  Keeping with the scallop theme, I used a scalloped circle to mat the sentiment.  To bring a little sparkle to the card I added rhinestones to a few of the ornaments.

Having used up the red and green papers, I switched to a completely different color scheme.  I pulled out some pink and purple print papers and a darker purple cardstock for matting.  I used VersaFine Imperial Purple ink to stamp the sentiment and a couple dies sets to create the sentiment panels.  Although it’s difficult to see in the picture, I added Love From Lizi iridescent peel-offs for some sparkle on the “Happy Holidays” cards.

So far I’ve made 26 cards.  I’ve picked a few other favorite papers from the Recollections paper pad and will be making several more Christmas cards.  My goal is to make about 50 cards and then switch to another fall/winter holiday.