Waste Not, Want Not

 

Last month I spent a lot of time doing two things - trying to use up some of my older stash, and making a bunch of Christmas cards, so this month I'll be showing several Christmas cards.  Today's examples not only use up a bunch of old cards, shaped brads, and embossed pieces, they also demonstrate how to make the most of your mats.  Note the mat in the card below.

Would you guess that the mat was used to cut out the shaped piece for the first card?  These next couple of pictures tell the story.

By placing the cutting die carefully so there was plenty of margin around it, the paper can form a great mat, and yet not have all that space wasted that would have been behind the embossed piece.