Season's Greetings

The majority of my cards are reaching their destinations minus a few that have been sent back (like the one to Germany that was eaten by the post office), those that don't have addresses yet (despite trying to get to finalized in September), and the ones that I hope to send with FMIL's box to her family (planning on getting that wrapped up in the next day or two and shipped).

Here is a round-up of the past two years' cards, followed up by a reveal of this year's card.

 

 Postcard -style for 2010 with about 70 cards made for about 50 people. It was a combination of supplies I already had plus a new products from SU! because I was recently introduced to the company.

 I tried adding tiny rhinestones, using dimensional stickers to pop-up the sentiment, and silver heat-embossing.

 

 I stuck on some plain white paper to write a note to everyone but learned after that year that it was too much space for me to fill in a short amount of time.

 

 This was my card from 2011. I looked at what I liked from my previous cards and loved the neutral base, snowflake images, and one special technique. This had heat-embossing and dry-embossing using my Cuttlebug.

 Started a tradition of planning ahead with the SO the design and color palette plus splurging on the supplies for this special project. This was all SU! this time because I was a demonstrator that year.

  That year, I was a little too enthusiastic with my new stamp greetings & sentiments and mixed up the amount/ size of the golden snowflakes on the front and the sentiments on the inside. I only made about 50 of these full cards for about 25 people.

And drumroll...

 This is our card from this year. I had a completely different layout and palette idea planned mid-year, but I got the new SU! catalog and saw this color-inspiration on a different holiday card they had. I also saw this stamp in a set and fell in love because it fits in my neutral-snowflake theme.

This year, I rounded the edges because I was all about that this year in my scrapbooking, I used the same sentiment stamp set as last year, as well as the embossing snowflakes. It was nice not having to buy a bunch of new tools this year, plus I wanted to not splurge too much. Postcard-style again and I got carried away and made about 80 for roughly 55 people.

I've learned a lot about what I like, trying to be a bit more efficient in terms of buying supplies and designing my card around. A nice compromise that I'm happy with. This year, I know there wasn't a lot of room to fill with writing, but I wanted it that way with so many cards to send out. For some of my friends, I included a separate insert with a background story about Flat Stanley and I included a mini-laminated version of the character. I hope to collect a bunch of pictures over the next year now that I've introduced everyone via my own shenanigans this past year. I can't wait!