Tuesday, June 12

A Wonderful Time Of Year?

It's that time of year where I lose a bit of my mind and start adamantly planning this year's Christmas cards.

Yeah, it's barely June- I'm not quite sure what gets into me.

Maybe it's because craft companies are rolling out tiny previews of their holiday collections and/or July seems to be the month were complete new lines are launched in the crafting world.

It seems that our only hope of getting something really fun or cool done in time is to start at least three months earlier. One month at the very latest and that's involving many late stressful nights. That our we're six months to six years behind on all the projects we want to do. LOL.

Well, the holidays are a stressful time for most of us (even without the crafting) and the more we can get done during the usually less busy summer/ early fall months, the better.

My cards are usually done by August, I finalize addresses during September, I plan on thinking of heartfelt messages in October, I panic about not thinking of enough things to write and throw together something in November, and I scramble to make sure everything is mailed out in the first week and a half of December. Perfect. XD

I've tried really hard to do birthday cards and have realized that I'm terrible at it. Especially since we're not exactly comfortable with putting too much in our actual mailbox. That means we have to take a trip to a mailing center that it's not exactly convenient anymore now that the Target down the street has groceries. Way too many details. Oh man, my sanity is just melting out of my ears.

The new Stampin' Up! catalog went live on the first of this month and there's this color combination I saw in one of their samples that I fell in love with. Thanks to being a demonstrator, I was able to access their resources and find out exactly which products they used and I was pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out how a project was made just by looking at it, but it's all good.

I hesitated to put in an order for the supplies because I've started a tradition of getting a new stamp set for my biggest annual paper-crafting project but hadn't fallen head over heels yet.

Then today's mail came in.

I got my monthly magazine newsletter from them (it's chock-full of amazing projects, tips, and previews) and they decided to send us the new Holiday Catalog early this year! Bigger and better than ever, I am so excited. There are so many really great tools and sets in it. I am totally pleased with how it turned out.

Fell in love with about three stamp sets, reigned myself back with practicality, and decided on the best set for our cards. I cannot wait to order it in July! Maybe I'll wait until August.

This is where I usually start the process, by picking the stamp set and color scheme at about the same time. Usually the former inspires the latter. That or there's some special product that I fall in love with and I plan the entire card around that one little detail. It's like having a favorite pair of earrings or sneakers you adore and planning the rest of your outfit around it.

I think I'm trying to convince the "theys" of the world that I'm not a complete weirdo, LOL. I love being a weirdsie. It's a lot of fun. :P

I just went through and made a rough list of how many and who we want to send cards to. It's back way up to what it was about two years ago. That's about 70 cards, so that's going to really take some planning.

The only thing that I have left to do (and this part I think I dread the most in terms of planning) is to figure out the layout. Last time I did that too early before I had all of the products in front of me and my master plan ended up having to change almost completely. Sigh, I had such good momentum going to, but remembering that means maybe I should hit pause for now.

There's extra excitement for this year's cards because during this last trip to Florida and visiting with many friends, I heard tons of appreciation and love for my past cards. It's actually the first time I've been thanked for them other than right after they were given (when it's more of an afterthought). I really realized how much my efforts mean to my loved ones and it added much needed fuel to that fire.

I wonder if anyone else gets this way about some tradition or this enthusiastic about planning a project...

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