Pinterest Inspired Holiday Cards

Merry Christmas!   I thought I'd share a few cards that I made this year to send out to friends and family.  I actually made all of the Christmas cards I sent this year - about 50 of them!  I relied on my pinterest board "card inspiration" for the inspiration for my cards, but made them each my own.

For this card, I used the phrase from a card by Lisa Spangler from Studio Calico but then cut out a snowman using my Silhouette Cameo.  The idea came to me from seeing a package of six adorable Studio Calico bows sitting on my desk and thinking that I could use them all up making six holiday cards.

This poinsettia card was inspired by this card on my pinterest board.  I didn't have any other use for the gold doilies from a Studio Calico kit from a few months ago, so I thought this would be a good way to use them.  I used the Silhouette again for the poinsettia.

Finally, I was inspired by this card to create four of these cards using different holiday words from Heidi Swapp.  I actually used bits from the Heidi Swapp "Believe" line on each of these cards.  

I hope every one has a wonderful holiday!

Do you choose photos or paper first?

This question was asked on a Studio Calico message board over the weekend and I immediately thought of this layout that I recently created.  I had the photo printed in 2008 and I never made a layout with it until I saw this MME paper that came in the May 2012 Studio Calico kit, 35mm.

The photo is of a Christmas tree that we saw in the Cayman  Islands while we were on a cruise there.  The tree was made of driftwood and had a ocean creature theme.  The paper was perfect for the photo and the layout came together really easily after that.  The kit had just the right embellishments and pops of orange and turquoise.

I used a lot new Heidi Swapp on this layout - the banner, the mistable letters and I used part of a memory file.  I wasn't convinced about the memory file at first, but I loved using three of the pages from it to add some dimension and extra room for photos and journaling.  Here's one of the interior pages.

I printed some journaling on patterned paper for the next interior page.  

I also was really surprised that I loved the black and white dotted Bazzill paper that was in the kit.  It is a really thin paper, not like other patterned papers thickness at all.  I discovered that is is perfect to pleat and crumble and I decided that I liked it so much, I bought a few more sheets of it at my LSS.

I find that most of the time, I try to find photos that fit the kit since I am most often times working with the most current kit.  If I have a photo that I want to scrap, I'll look through the photos of kits first and find a kit that fits the photo.  

How do you choose?  Photos or paper first?

Have a great week everyone!