Happy New Year! I hope that it’s a healthy and happy one for you and yours. But before I’m ready to move properly into 2016, I’m going to take a look back at the last year. In card making terms at least. Here are my favourite cards from 2015; happily it took me quite some time and effort to narrow them down to 12. I decided one per month was about the right number. Well, actually I was aiming for ten but just couldn’t get there. They are in order from the newest made to the oldest. Click on any of the photos to go to the original post.

This is using a sneak peek from the upcoming Occasions catalogue which will be live on Tuesday. Also one of my favourite birthday sentiments from Birthday Blossoms.

Here’s another sneak peek using some of the gorgeous Birthday Bouquet DSP from the upcoming catalogue as well as the new bow paper clips embellishments.

I was really pleased with how this one came out – I used a sponging and spritzing technique that my sister showed me earlier in the day. Although I did try to destroy the card by cutting my background with a framelit, I managed to recover the card.

This card was inspired by a colour challenge and I decided to use the sponge and spritz technique to make this rather fun looking ornament. I ended up making quite a number of them and they all looked slightly different.

This was for a colour challenge and it took me quite a while to design a card that I was happy with. I initially had ignore the Acorny Thanks stamp set but was really happy that in the end I got it.

This is a card that I made with a set that my sister brought with her when she was visiting and I can’t believe that I hadn’t already bought it! It’s on my list for my next order. It’s such a fun and happy set.

This card was made for a colour challenge and I was determined to use the Peaceful Pines set. As often seems to happen, it took a while before I got something that I was really happy with – although as this list shows, I tend to like the cards that I had to really work at. Apparently challenges are producing some of my favourite cards. I was really happy with the dangling stars, I think it makes the card.

I am proud of this card (which is probably why I still have it!). It mastered a very hard colour challenge since tempting turquoise, melon mambo and daffodil delight are so bright that it was almost overwhelming to me.

This is one of my favourite watercoloured cards – although now I think it would be improved with a slim mat behind the watercolour paper. I’ll have to remake it.

I made this for my friend Julia when she needed a card for a co-worker. I made quite a few with the Zoo Babies set, although none lately. I may have to get that fun set out again.

This deceptively simple card was quite tricky to make. I made all sorts of errors – forgot to change colours, accidentally stamped a flower in the mossy meadow, messed up the masking and so on. But in the end, I was really happy with how it came out. I still miss the Painted Petals stamp set – it’s still on my shelf and will stay there.

This was a set from last year’s Sale-a-bration and I had a lot of fun colouring with the blendabilities. Although these days, since the blendabilities are no longer on sale, I tend to watercolour instead. Even though I still have the pens! I don’t think I’ve used them at all since they were discontinued which is not what I was expecting.

So that’s my line up of my favourite cards of last year. Happily, some were made quite recently which means my card making is evolving in a way that I like. And that’s a good thing.

I don’t tend to make resolutions – it seems a little crazy to only make them once per year, but this year I really do resolve to send more cards. I have masses piled up in shoe boxes. They need to be set free and sent to people.

See you tomorrow,

Liz