It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

The busyness of life recently has unfortunately put a pause in my creativity. I baked cupcakes the other day, hoping to be even a little bit creative, but couldn't even be bothered icing them!

Today, I was incredibly determined to un-pause it, and because Christmas is 'right around the corner' (less than 6 weeks away to be exact-ish), I forced myself to get creative and make some Christmas cards...

Out of Christmas cards... (and wrapping paper).

I'd had this idea last year (to make for this year), but in a moment of ruthless de-cluttering a few months ago, I threw last year's unused Christmas stuff out. <mental palm to the forehead>

So I got some more :)

This is what I started with (I quite obviously went with a blue theme):

- Ribbon

- Christmas cards

- Cardboard (not pictured, because I couldn't find it quickly enough)

- Wrapping paper

- Baubles

- Scissors, glue, etc.

First, I cut my cardboards in half, and folded them..... Hmmm... Now what?

So, I got a knife...

... Aaaaand I made two roughly spaced out incisions at the bottom of the card to thread ribbon through to make a bow on the front... What else do you do when you don't know what to do or where to start?

Hopefully next time, though, I will remember that I need to thread the ribbon upside down if I want it to be the right way around... Makes total sense :)

I was getting the hang of it now... Cutting, pasting, not thinking too much about symmetry and just going with whatever I felt like doing at the time. It was so refreshing having that freedom! And so easy :)

These cards are as simple as bits and pieces cut out of cards and wrapping paper, stuck onto cardboard in whatever way I felt like at the time... They're fairly easy to recreate multiple times, or to do something completely different with each. Like slicing a Christmas card into strips and rearranging them onto a new card.

Whoever said that scrap bits of cardboard don't come in handy, hasn't had blank areas of DIY Christmas cards to fill. 

Of course, what were really scrap pieces of card and paper went into the recycling bin... I'm not that enthusiastic about keeping rubbish!

Now... You may have noticed, in my 'equipment' list, there were baubles... What might they be for, you ask??

Place settings of course!

I haven't quite finished them, but here's a rough idea of what they will look like (I've used blu-tac to stick this one together as I might thread some small silver ribbon through the top or something, which will be much easier to do before it's all glued together):

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!! Yay!!