ok, i'm flat-out cheating now

but desperate times call for desperate measures. last weekend i found a few leftover cards & envelopes from an old chatterbox greetings kit i used for thank you notes last year. and since i still had plenty of fussy-cut bits*...and embellishments...i decided to do stuff like this:

and these:

and this guy, here, who is my favorite of the batch:

(supplies used on all 4 cards: chatterbox cards with diecut windows; large poinsettias: imaginisce; small poinsettias & leaves: prima; cardstock and laminated diecuts: k&co; sparkly rub-ons & jewel brads: making memories; sentiment stickers: chatterbox, 7 gypsies; chipboard word: ek success; other: vintage sheet music & poinsettia pictures, colorbox inks, zig pen, foam tape)

happy weekend-before-xmas, darlings!!!

*the hand-cutting phenom is not QUITE as nuts as you think: seeing as how it is torture for us hyperactive types to just sit, this is one of the things i do during long car rides. on the way to and from the movies** the other weekend i got through a whole sheet of little ornaments and an enough monstas to menace the entire xmas tree population of new jersey!

to answer amy's cutting question: i use regular old goodish, nice-n-sharp, only-used-on-paper, full-sized fiskars. (i am 5'10" with hands & feet to match...teeny scissors DO NOT help me!) the secret to cutting small things with big scissors is to A) move the PAPER, not the scissors ...and... B) use the *fulcrum* part of the scissors--the part waaaaay in towards the handles, rather than the ends of the blades. years and years and years of practice does not hurt either. although you may well get carpal tunnel. but that's another story, kids!

**(forty-five minutes each way) (...this is not the closest theater, but it's the one closest to a good indian restaurant...and if you don't think those two things are related, all i can say is you clearly DO NOT know lovely husband jeff!!!) :)