Why Dies Are a Good Investment in Cardmaking

When making purchases for cardmaking, we are always drawn to cute, classic, or versatile stamps sets that we can use over and over.

But another good investment are dies.

Today is a card share with retired paper and stamp sets but made with new dies from the Stampin' Up 2019 Catalog. 

While making another stack of Christmas cards for family, friends, and my husband's co-workers, I came across some leftover designer series paper from 2017: "Merry Little Christmas."

This was a favorite of mine -- the bold plaid patterns and that the rich colors were a little different than the traditional Garden Green and Real Red. 

After deciding to use up this paper, I designed a simple card layout that best utilized the leftover paper scraps, and where I could change each one up with different embellishment layers.

Here you can see the layered square for a standard card base. This made it easy to precut those patterned paper squares with the cardstock layers and have them ready to assemble.  Also precut were the sentiment ovals with the Whisper White and the bottom scalloped ovals in Old Olive.

Some cards were made with the "Happy Christmas" sentiment from the "Oh What Fun" stamp set from 2015 (below), and some with a sentiment from the November 2017 Paper Pumpkin Kit (above). 

Finally, I added new embellishments by adding die-cuts to my cards from the Snowfall Thinlit Dies (2019 Holiday Catalog, #149692) on the above card, 

and this leaf branch (above) and the snowflakes (below) from the Christmas Layer Dies (2019 Holiday Catalog, #150654). 

Dies like these are a good investment, since the patterns can be used for years to come, and aren't associated with any particular stamp set. These two die sets will be ones that I will use for years to come. 

How will you use up your favorite holiday papers to make cards this year?

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