A start on Christmas cards

Hello, my name is Margaret and I am a procrastinator...but I can change, if I have to, I guess...
They say that the first step to overcoming a bad habit is to admit that you have one. While I know that my procrastinating can sometimes cause added stress and the occasional 'dropping the ball', I have to be honest and say that some of my best work comes when under pressure. While working my way through college, I loved my job at Big Lots (an eclectic discount retail chain).  Each day when I came in, it was a different area of the store, a special task, or customer service that awaited me.  I loved the challenge of adjusting to my new duties and although most of my coworkers thought I was crazy, I loved difficult customers. Not nasty, hateful customers, but people that came in the door knowing that they probably weren't going to be pleased. I loved the look of pure shock and awe when I would help them with their concerns and offer suggestions they hadn't considered.  This was not a job I could plan for; it was fly by the seat of my pants and I LOVED it.

If you're still with me, you are probably wondering just what this has to do with paper crafting. My point, and I do have one, is that while I do have to keep my procrastinating in check in most areas, there are other times that the impulsive response is the best.  This is how I create my Christmas cards.  I will look through idea books, surf online, and browse the craft stores, but in the end some of my best cards come at the last minute trying to get just a few more greetings in the mail before the big day.  I like to think that at these times I'm not nitpicking my creativity and it thanks me by giving it's best efforts.

I wasn't planning on making a Christmas card this week, but then I saw the sketch at Sketches By Carly and thought about the stamp set Gift Givers, which hasn't seen much ink yet, a card began to form.  It is not at all like most Christmas cards I create, but I really love how it turned out! I even managed to use some Spice Cake DSP on this!!

I really love that SU started carrying Dazzling Details.  I love this stuff for snow! I also have recently started an addiction to Vanilla Shimmer Smooch Spritz. Almost all of my 'girly' cards get a few shots of this awesome stuff!

Card Recipe: Cardstock- very vanilla, pool party, Spice Cake DSP, Ink-basic gray, pool party, island indigo, blush blossom, Stamp Sets-Gift Givers, Snow Swirled, Tags So Much (ret.-colored only sentiment), Accessories-vanilla shimmer smooch spritz, dazzling details, very vanilla seam binding, scallop circle punch, 2 3/8 scallop circle punch

I also wanted to share a picture from the Louisville Regional Event.  Several ladies from our team, The Crafty SisTAHs, went together.  This is such a wonderful group of ladies and we had a great day together. I'm in the back row wearing pink!

I'll share some pics of swaps in my next post!!