Is it Christmas or Not?

Recently, I was organizing my stamps and thought about putting them into catagories.  You know, Christmas, flowers, etc.  Well, as I was going through the stamp sets, it was apparent to me that catagorizing my stamps this way would not utilize them as well.  So many non-Christmas sets work very well for Christmas and visa versa.  I have used elements of my Christmas sets for other occasions through the year too.  To illustrate this, I created two cards today.  The first card was created using the SU Choo-Choo set, as well as the Loads of Love and Loads of Love Accessories sets.  These are not Christmas sets, but look how well they lend themselves to Christmas themes. 

Here's a tip:  To make the peppermints, I used the snowflake stamp from Delightful Decorations, stamped in Real Red and punched with the 1/2" circle punch.  At the bottom of the card I did the same thing, but layered the CS using the faux button technique, which gave the peppermints more dimension and sparkle.

Okay, so my second example was created using the God's Beauty set, but can you also see where I tucked in a Christmas image?

Give up?  I used the Patterned Pines stamp set from the SU Holiday Mini catalog.  There is kind of a Celtic cross pattern I created with the trees from this set.  I stamped in silver and then embossed.  Cool huh?

It's really a waste of money and stamps to only use your holiday stamps for one season a year.  So get out your Christmas, Halloween, |Thanksgiving, Easter, 4th of July...... stamps and see what other ways you could use them on your everyday cards.

By the way, I would love to hear how you organize your stamp sets. 

Recipe for the above cards: 
STAMPS:  Patterned Pines, God's Beauty, Choo-Choo, Loads of Love, Loads of Love Accessories, Delightful Decorations.
PAPER:  SU I believe it's called Picnic?, SU Bella Bleu, Almost Artichoke, Whisper White, vellum.
OTHER:  SU re-inkers, Real Red and Glorious Green, Black ink pads.  Ribbon, pearl beads, liquid applique, glitter.

Til next time,