I made this for someone who'd had a "terrible, horrible no good, very bad day" at work. It's one of the little Target $1 mailboxes that I have had in my stash for a long time. I was saving it for something special, and this seemed the perfect use for it, especially once I filled it with chocolates. I used Silhouette designs, cut from vinyl. I put her name on the side with the flag.
I often throw away the smaller scraps left over from projects. I keep the larger ones, but today as I was cleaning my craft room, I had a lot of leftover papers to sort from projects. I hadn't realized just how big the pile had gotten. Once I sorted out the bigger pieces, I looked at the various bits left, and thought, not for the first time, that I could easily get some die cut banners and other shapes from them. I hate to waste pretty papers, especially since I no longer live near a scrapbook store. Even if I did, inflation is driving prices up everywhere, and I was raised by a mom who didn't like anything to go to waste. I didn't take a photo before I began, but this is the pile of die cuts that I now have after die cutting the smaller scraps into something more practical, that I can hopefully use on a card or other project. In the future, I should die cut the leftover bits promptly, so that I don't end up with an overwhelming mountain of paper scraps again. These took a few evenings to cut.
I love Heartfelt Creations stamps, dies, and papers. I especially love their stamps for flower making, but adding them to a card can mean adding a lot of postage due to their bulk. This weekend, I focused on using papers and cut out designs from a couple of their paper pads to make quicker and easier cards. Using cut outs allows you to die cut already colored designs, which is a great time saver. I have agonized over cutting up their beautiful papers, but if I never use them, it's just money wasted.
This first card was made using one of the 12x12 sheets that is divided into 6x6 sections, with one of the sections being an ivy covered wall. It is from the Wildwood Cottage collection, which was discontinued at least a year ago. I wish I could buy that brick and ivy paper in bulk. I used the Cottage Window from one of the cut apart sheets of the Cottage Garden Collection, which is still available. The floral spray is from one of the cut apart sheets of the Climbing Clematis Collection, also currently available. I popped the window and floral spray with foam tape, and although it doesn't show in the photo, used Wink of Stella to add a bit of shimmer.
In this second card, I used only the Climbing Clematis cut aparts, a phrase stamp from My Favorite Things, and die cut it with a Queen & Company Foundation die. I used foam tape and Wink of Stella on this card, too.
