Thanks to the efforts of my contact at the distributor, the final pieces of the kit puzzle arrived last night, just in the Nick of time!

See what I did there? It’ll be more apparent in a minute…

The time has come, friends, to let you see the next kit, or should I say kits, available from The Crafty Branch!

CPR (standing for Cards Prepared and Ready) is a program I thought up way back in my Close to My Heart days (~2003ish) and the idea is to help us keep on top of things, get cards made so that we always have one on hand when the need arises. Now, with the Creative Mischief Kits, I finally have a way to offer it that makes sense. At least I hope it does!

This first CPR kit (I’m thinking these will be quarterly, depending on interest) is all about holiday cards–both the traditional Christmas variety and a more modern, non-secular holiday style–and simplifying the process of putting together a batch of cards so that’s one less thing you have to worry about as the holiday hurtle towards us. The technique for these kits is three ways with stencils: using vellum and a stylus to dry emboss, using texture paste and palette knives to create raised designs, and the more traditional ink and dauber method to reproduce the design (or part of the design) of the stencil onto your paper or medium of choice.

The Winter Whimsy kit, pictured above, has cute snow people, mittens and snowflakes on the patterned paper (with different patterns on the back–2 stripes and one sweater ribbed) in shades of blue with other bright accents.

Meanwhile, the Classic Christmas kit works with the usual palette of red and green and has paper with poinsettia, stripes, and quotes from A Christmas Carol (with, again, more designs on the back).

The cutting diagrams included in the kit will show you how to use 3 sheets of paper (either the printed ones, or some of the solid card stock–2 sheets of each color–or some combination of both) to create 20 cards with no waste. There are 20 card blanks and 20 envelopes included in the kit. Of course, you’ll have at least enough paper to do another 20 cards on your own or create some cute tags or scrapbook layouts with the rest. The stencil and the different tools mean that your cards won’t look like anyone else’s, even if you follow my cutting diagrams to the letter, because you’ll apply your own creative spark to the finished product!