lotsa {christmas} cards

hi all! 

(weird - my post posted itself all on it's own while i was typing....i apologize if you have to read this twice.)

hi all!

we had a great time at the cookie exchange party tuesday!  hollyn loved playing with all the kids and i loved seeing friends i don't see nearly often enough these days.  we came home with some yummy treats of all kinds and we also did an ornament exchange which was really fun too.  apparently this is not a new way to do things but it was new to me - everyone had numbers.  when it was your turn you could either pick a wrapped ornament from under the tree OR steal someone else's ornament they had already unwrapped!  too fun!

then yesterday we got together with some folks at the skating rink - wednesday morning they have a session for littler kids with push toys and ride on toys and bikes and such.  we used to go alot but the rink was closed down for quite awhile for major renovations.  i tried to get pezza to bring her bike to practice on a nice flat area but she refused.  instead she chose to bring a baby and a doll carriage (WTF?) and spent the entire time trying to get a turn on other kids bikes cuz she wanted something to ride.  unfortunately some were not interested in sharing with her so it was a whole lot less fun than the cookie party :P

also went for my third chiropractor visit - my headaches are improving some but when they hit they sure hit hard!

and in the midst of it all i made 7 more xmas cards to show you!

I used my ALL TIME favorite cricut cartridge and my Imagine - Snow Angels.  i love EVERYTHING about this cartridge - the colors, the patterns, the images, the shapes.  i got this after christmas last year and couldn't wait to make cards with it but i was having a lot of trouble callibrating my machine.  it's still not quite right but good enough to make the cards if i turn off the borders.

I chose all of my main shapes and then edited them so they were 3.5" and separated into layers.  this way i could stack the layers with foam tape after inking the edges to give the cards some depth and dimension - much more interesting than the flat one layer image!

after doing my main images i worked on my patterned papers - SO EASY with the imagine because they are all on one cart and totally coordinate!

i did not print out entire pages, which is an option on the imagine.  there would be too much wasted paper and ink that way.

instead i chose a 5"x7" rectangle from the stock shapes on the imagine and then added various patterns to it - i printed 7 altogether, 1 for each card. 

my cards are 5.5"x4.25" so i knew a 5x7 piece would give me plenty to cover the card front.

the extra i cut off was perfect for a smaller panel on the front of each card!  i ended up with VERY little waste!

next i dug around and found perfectly matched cardstock to use for the card base, the mat for the smaller panel and the nestie mat for each ornament - i rarely print solid colors.

i used a different edge punch on each mat and a different nestie on each as well and then put it all together!

this was a fun and relatively easy little project to do - it was somewhat assembly line since all of the measurements and the layout were the same without the boring monotony of making a bunch of cards exactly the same.

what do y'all think?