merry beary.

Every year I commit to making all of my holiday cards to send to family and friends by hand. I usually only send out about 20 or 30 cards, so its not a huge deal, just a lot of time sitting and cutting out many of whatever that years theme is decided to be. Last year it was Christmas trees, the year before, mittens on clothes pins (teeny, tiny clothespins) and the year before that, little colorful squares cut from patterned paper and finished with HAND TIED ribbons. Yes, as much as I love doing this tedious Holiday craft, there is always that moment when I find myself sitting at the dining room table late at night srrounded by hundreds of paper trees, mittens or ribbons to tie and thinking "WHAT on EARTH HAVE I GOT Myself into!!??" then I'll talk to a family member and they'll say "we can't wait to get one of your cards this year!" and I realize its all worth it.

This year I've cheated a little bit and instead of free forming my cutouts I decided to use this adorable paper from Paper Source. The bears are being cut out individually and assembled on the cards. I am thinking about maybe using tropical scenes with beaches and palm trees in the background to send a message of global warming, but that might be a little too much like a scene from LOST. I have plenty of time to think it over while I am cutting.

The reason I am cutting out so many is to hopefully make double the amount of cards I need so that I can sell them in packs on my etsy store this week. Just look how cute these little faces are. You know you'll want them too!