Its Christmas time once again, readers. The end of 2022 is upon us. A recovery year. I spent a lot of time going through my craft cave and reorganizing. There was too much duplication. For example, if I was looking for stuff to make a Christmas card, I had stuff in drawers, stuff hanging over head, stuff on shelves, etc. I took all the stuff that was hanging and on shelves, reorganized the drawers into themes, and got it all into its proper drawer. Now I have one drawer with all the wreath making things in it, one with all Santa, one for Christmas Critters, one for candy, snowflakes, trees, ornaments, words get two drawers, and then the dreaded miscellaneous for anything that doesn't quite fit into one of the other themes. I like it so much I kept on going. Flowers, circles, ovals, squares, land animals, birds, sea creatures, words again, birthday, valentines, 4th of july, St Pats, Thanksgiving, bees and hexagons, bugs, baby, chick stuff, ribbons and lines, etc they all have a drawer or two dedicated to everything that works for that holiday or theme. Halloween is themed out into words, pumpkins, houses, witches, cats, skeletons, mixed monsters etc.
To be sure, some things work for more than one holiday. When that's the case, I made a little folder to keep in the drawer that says "see also..." to point me to the drawers where something else in the theme of what I'm building might be found. I know, I'm a little obsessive. But finding something when you want it is key to happiness in the craft cave. I had not done this since moving to this house in Brookfield, so it's been 8 years, maybe? Definitely time for a cleanse and shuffle. Rene, a fellow crafter, who has a posse of gal pals she crafts with was the beneficiary of the purge. Perfect.
Ok - so now that we are all organized, I found a bunch of stuff I've been hanging onto for YEARS waiting to make good use of it. I save all my scraps. Years of saving scraps gives you a heap of scraps. When I'm bored in front of the TV or just in general, I pull out my scraps and start making them into tags. I must have had 45+ Christmas tags started in a box that I finally decided it was time to use. I added a brad to the top, stamped and embossed something Christmassy on the front and tucked it into the front of a whole pile of cards. I had a lot of printed Kraft paper, which if you don't know, is kind of like brown butcher paper, but heavier, like cardstock. It's the perfect brown for gingerbread so these cards are all about cookies and gingerbread people, with a little tag tucked in for use as a bookmark when you find that recipe you need to mark.
Some of the photos are a little blurry. Sorry, my bad, they are all in the mail so I can't retake them. Woops. I was still short some cards for the full Christmas delivery so down there at the bottom are a couple more I whipped up after the sort-of-annual cookie exchange was over. I had the backgrounds laying around since 2019, so used those up too. Sweet. That sweater weather card makes me happy. Not sure why. Maybe it's the Christmas tree wearing a sweater that does it.
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