Saving a "Bundle"

Howdy Blog Hoppers-are you worn out from all your hopping so far?  Can I offer you a margarita? 

 Welcome to my post for the "Hopes" Blog Hop--

Hopefully most of you made it here from Debby's Blog or from the Club Scrap Creates Blog.  If you just happened upon my post I encourage you to go back and check out some of the highly creative work posted on the other blogs (that is so way better than my stuff-really!)

So I have a bit of a hard time with these blog hops because I have a secret...I'm a bundle-er.  I'm not even sure of the correct spelling of that word but in detail-I bundle my Club Scrap kits each month to save on shipping so I don't get the bulk of my items until AFTER the Blog Hop date has passed.  This is a wonderful option for people who might be cheapskates a little on the thrifty side.  It just means that to keep from cutting up my Senior kit papers I have to improvise a little for the Hop.  With that in mind here's what I came up with...

I have been LOVING the card cutting formulas in some of the Raps lately and this month's was a great use of 12 ea 8 1/2 x 11 papers to make 12 cards.  You can find the directions here (on pages 16 and 17.)  

So without my Hopes Stamp kit papers I decided to go back through my enormous stash of stuff and find a similar pack of paper to work with.  The Written Word Stamp paper seemed to fit the bill perfectly.  I find it easier if you pick paper with a similar composition as the paper in the directions.  For example this pack had one very dark color, one thin or text weight type paper etc.  

Since the directions mentioned that the text weight paper was a print I went ahead and made my own "prints" with the Written Word Vellum and the Hopes UM stamps.

The next step is to follow the directions and cut out all your papers.  I find it easiest to make a quick note listing which papers I used to substitute for the papers listed on the directions.  This just keeps me from getting confused and accidentally cutting the wrong paper the wrong way (because this has never happened to you right?)  So after cutting, scoring and folding you end up with all your pieces.

Next I like to lay out my pieces in the "cards" they are going to create.  This helps me visualize my finished product, make sure I use all my pieces and make sure I'm not left with a card and a matte that happen to be the same color as each other.  It helps to have someone look over your work...like AJ.

Once you have everything lined up you can get to stamping.  I think total time spent on all 12 cards was around 2 hours from paper selection to finished product.  Speaking of the finished product...

Notice how the carpet (freshly vacuumed by dbf) matches the cards so well!  Here is a close-up of a couple of the cards!

Written Word is one of my mom's favorite all time kits and she has already hinted at how much she LOVES the cards ;)  I love them too!  So grab some paper out of that stash and make up 12 cards of your own!

Thanks for stopping by-to see an entire list of bloggers participating this month please stop back by Club Scrap Creates.  Until next time...when we might discuss metal chickens, drug induced dreams or fresh vegetables...See ya!