Oldies but goodies

I love buying new stamping supplies: papers, ribbons, brads, various trinkets. It's all good. The problem is that I seem to have a hard time using them up. Occasionally I love something so much that I want to save it until I have the perfect project for it. But more often than not, what seems like the cutest embellishment or the most beautiful patterned paper is just replaced with the next latest and greatest thing, and it gets pushed to the bottom of the stack or back of the drawer.

So every once in awhile I decide to focus on using some of my older, neglected supplies. Here is the latest group of cards I made with some of these oldies but goodies:

Supplies (Stampin' Up!^®, unless otherwise noted):
Stamps: Touch of Nature, Curly Cute, Whimsical Words
Ink: Mellow Moss, Blue Bayou, Really Rust, Soft Sky
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Mellow Moss, Blue Bayou, Really Rust
Accessories: Beautiful Wings embosslit, 1-3/4" Circle punch, Ticket Corner Punch, Corner Rounder, Aged Copper Hodgepodge Hardware, Mellow Moss grosgrain ribbon, copper and silver brads (Making Memories), circle tag (Creative Imaginations), woven label (Me & My Big Ideas), hemp cord (The Finishing Touch), stapler (Making Memories), Dimensionals

I used collage-style stamping with the retired Touch of Nature stamp set and several retired colors to create the background paper. I cut a piece of the background paper for each card and then just added greetings and embellishments. Well, I say "just," but it actually took me longer than I thought it would. For some reason I struggled with these cards. I'm not sure if it was the colors or images or maybe the combination of the two. Who knows.

I think my favorite cards are the two with the Curly Cute greetings; I like the simple layouts. The circle tag on the birthday card has canvas material inside the metal rim. Cool, right? That's what I thought until I decided to use it. I tried stamping on it, adding flowers, putting an eyelet in the hole. But nothing seemed right. I finally settled on adding the woven label and hemp cord. Not quite what I was going for, but I think it turned out okay.

I've pulled out some other forgotten supplies (in some ways, it's almost like getting new things), so maybe I'll continue my mission tomorrow. Happy Friday!