Happy New Year!

Well, we did it! We made it to 2012. I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to a better year than last year. And this year, I actually made some resolutions. It's been years since I've made them, but this year I really do want to accomplish a few things, including three crafty ones. 1) Do a blog entry at least once a week. 2) Participate in more challenges. 3) Empty out the container below.

This container is full of cards that need to be revamped. Many of them have just a sentiment slapped on them. I've had some of them for a few years because I knew they weren't good enough to send out. Now I've challenged myself to get them out of the house! And just think of all the new craft stuff I can put in that container.

So here's what I got accomplished out of it today:

This was originally just the pink card base with the celebrate embellie in the middle. I carefully peeled it off and added some more color. The squares are Basic Grey and the green is from a DCWV pack that was pre-embossed. I love that kind of paper. This card is for my friend Mary's birthday.

Next I redid this one:

It originally had only the pink card base with the embellie off to the side. The same papers were used. I'm trying to work on using some of my stash. I have so much paper and ribbon that I'm running out of room in my small craft area. My hubby helped with the pink ribbon placement on this. I wanted to add more but he insisted it would be too much. Turns out he was right lol. The white ribbon came with the embellie.

I love rhinestone sentiments, like the one on here:

And that's all it was before I fixed it...the green card base and sentiment. I couldn't remove the sentiment like I did the other two, so I worked around it. There's actually two different ribbons, the black with stitiching and the white with circles. I added a layered Prima flower and textured brad from Imaginisce. I had to really dig in my box of embellies because I just knew I had those brads.

The last one:

This had a sentiment that didn't come off in one piece, so I kept the card base and created something new. That patterned paper is the last of that Basic Grey piece. I love the Kid Sentiments from Inkadinkado. They are so funny and yet so truthful. I learned how to do the silk flowers from a tutorial on the Stars & Stamps blog. I was surprised how easy it was to deconstruct them and make them easy to use on cards. The top flower is purple, not blue like it looks in the picture.

All of these cards, except the first one, will go to Operation Write Home.

Good luck on any resolutions you made for the new year!

Cherie