Why I made these cards standing up

Because I had no room at my desk basically!

Also, the commitment it takes to go sit down and get overwhelmed by choices of stuff to use at my desk is a bit much sometimes, you know? Unless I have a clear idea of what I want to do in the beginning I find it hard to go with it esp. when under pressure. 

I needed to make a card for my sister's birthday a few weeks ago, and to combat the no-room-on-my-desk and sitting-is-committing isses, I took the stuff I needed to the kitchen bench and spread out. 

I love being able to spread out! 12 x 12 paper is rather large and it needs room to move, yes?

I also knew it'd have to be a designated card making session, not a leave-it-there-for-days session, because I had to make dinner after :o)

What's weird is I never craft standing up. I know there's lots of ladies who do, I've seen their rooms, but I've never been a standing up kinda girl.

Interestingly, I scrapbook standing up now. I needed a solution to get some pages done and decided I'd try the stand up approach at a cabinet in our living room. To my surprise it worked and I was getting pages done! I've got photos etc and I'll show them soon.  

This was my sister's card - it took me about 20 mins to make, I'd say. That's pretty fast for me.

Because I had the stuff all over the bench, I decided to make some more like this one below.  

When I make a bunch of cards at the same time, I spread everything out, choose the feature pieces I want for each card and cut and place the bits all at the same time. I essentially build the cards all at once trying bits and pieces on each card until I'm happy.

Does anyone else do this, or am I the only one?

It's not the only way I make cards, but it's one way, particularly when I'm using a collection - this one was Material Girl from Cosmo Cricket.

You can see above how I've got the card bases there (all A5) and I'm trying bits and pieces. Like I said, I choose things I want to use then build the card around them.

Being a crafter I had to use the "a day spent crafting is a good day" quote, right? Right.

Each card got an envelope made for it out of the collection's paper too. It makes it all matchy matchy and it's a good way to use up the paper - if you need to, that is.

Sounds a bit frivolous to use an entire sheet for an envelope, but it does make the card extra special and honestly, I can't save every bit of paper, I'd just rather use it. 

I make my envelopes on the Crafter's Companion Ultimate Pro - check out a video on it here if you've not seen it before.

The CC is my go-to envelope maker of choice. It's sooo quick and easy! 

And just a couple of other tools I took out with me to use on the cards - a tracing tool and pinking shears. Very materialy/sewy type tools that I thought'd work with the theme.

Sue liked the card and I had fun making it. Hey, 20 mins and a nice card that the recipient liked - woo hoo.

Can't ask for more than that, except for that amount of room to spread out every time I craft!