Recycled Robins

Two posts in one day! Seeing as it is ages since I was here, I am having a catch up. My internet problems seem to have settled down now the high winds have dropped. In fact I am sitting by an open window, with the sun streaming in, and I´m writing about snowy robins!

As I send, and make, around 150 Christmas cards each year, I really need to make 12-15 each month to avoid a mad panic at the end of the year.

My score for January;- 2 !!!

So I thought I had better get my act together this month, and I pulled out my box of salvaged bits from this year´s cards. Robins seem to have been top of the charts, and I had quite a few. Some were huge and filled the whole card front, and there is not much I can do with those, but I selected some of a more usable size and went through my file of dies to find ones they fitted in. When they were all cut out I raided my snippets box to cut a mat for each one, and my Christmas paper off-cuts box for pieces of backing paper. Then I just had to match them up, make some base cards, and add a few embellishments - perfect pearls for holly berries, gems, glitter glue, peel-offs etc.

So here are my first three.

Dies used: Creative Expressions from  Sue Wilson´s California Collection, Spellbinders Floral Ovals, and Sizzix framelets - Fancy lables.

It is worth remembering when making cards like this, that one snippet of card can be made to go a long way. For the green card, (top left), I only had one

piece of that particular shade so when I had cut it to size for the large mat, I cut the frame from the centre of it. I put a small piece of white card stock in the ´hole´to bring it up to level with the rest, and glued my backing paper over it. Then before I used the frame, I cut the sentiment from it and hid that under the robin image. So I had a mat, frame and sentiment that all matched, from one off-cut of card.

Here is my next set. These two are smaller; an A6 card and a 12cm square.

This time I used some paper off-cuts for the first one, as well as some pieces from the original card, and a Martha Stewart punch to make the borders. I liked the little red square one, and for this I used a Impression Obsession Cover-a-card stamp on plain white card to make the backing paper. Red frame - Nellie Snellen die.

And finally, two more A6 cards.

For the first one I used a snippet of snowy paper, and a Marianne snowflake die, and for the second I used my favourite holly stamp, a very old one by Penny Black, with red perfect pearls for the berries.

Dies used. Spellbinders Resplendent Rectangles, and Nellie Snellen foliage frame.

Well that is seven made this month so things are improving. (I have actually made nine because my Rudolph Day ones are ready to post on 25th as I have visitors until then so I won´t be doing a lot of crafting!).

I have made a small dent in my snippets boxes with these cards so I am off to Pixie´s Snippets Playground. I have just posted some Spring flowers over there, so she´ll be thinking I´ve got my seasons in a muddle.