Drowning In Paper

I've finally admitted to myself that I have too much paper - patterned, cardstock, and everything else in between.  I know I'm not alone in this, as I often hear other crafters lamenting about the cute new papers that are currently on the market, and however shall I be able to buy just one, or even two?  This is why I've been trying very hard to stay steer clear of any craft stores: because I will typically have no willpower when it comes to paper.

When I started stamping and card-making, it was like I was giving myself a more legitimate reason to buy paper.  In the past, and way before I began papercrafting, I was always buying washi just for the patterns.  I occasionally did some origami, but since I was living in Guam and the Japanese market was pretty much a monopoly, washi was all over the place and I would buy it just to have it.  I remember a lot of gift-wrapping, and even journaling, which was always fun.  I still have a crate-full of that paper from long ago, and it has held up quite well.  I've been giving some of the bulk washi to my kids for origami, but I think for the most part they'd rather draw dragons, monsters, and army men freeing the people from said dragons and monsters on regular construction paper, heh.

Nowadays I've replaced the washi craziness with another craziness: heavyweight patterned paper.  Thankfully I have a long list of people who will be receiving hand made cards and gift tags this year, and I've been slowly using up my Christmas paper.  Here is a card I made this morning from the last bits of Echo Park paper that has been sitting around:

Of course my more current cards are totally riddled with Papertrey Ink products, because apparently I'm a fanatic, heh.  I used the Snowflake Medley dies, the peppermint stir sticks from the Candy Cane Christmas stamp set (my current favorite), and the sentiment from the Happiest of Holidays set (the tag is from Pink Paislee).  For these last sets of cards, I was trying to start with a smaller canvas just to see if I would approach it with more ease, and I think it was a bit easier than starting with the typical A2 size.  I think making smaller cards is my current "thing," so we'll see where that leads me.  The huge 12x12 layouts won't be my thing for a long while, and in the meantime smaller is less intimidating. :)

Hope you like the card...enjoy!