Dear Santa...Please Stop Here

This layout is proof that I am a problem-solver.  That's right - me - a solver of problems.  Oh, I haven't figured out how to end world hunger.  I haven't even figured out how to use the various remotes that sit on our coffee table.  But - I have figured out how to create a Christmas layout when I cannot find where I decided to store all my new Christmas papers!

See, this is what happened.  My BESTIE and I made a pre-Thanksgiving trip to our favorite scrapbooking store just days before Thanksgiving.  But, when I returned home, I was trying to get my house spic and span for my mother's yearly visit to Casa de Chaos (which is aptly named, trust me).  And...I violated one of the 10 Commandments of Organization.  THOU SHALT NOT PLACE ITEMS IN A SPACE THAT IS NOT LABELED AND/OR EASILY VISIBLE.  Guess what happened when I wanted to use my nice shiny new Christmas papers?  If you guessed I couldn't find them, you would be absolutely correct!!!  Rather than waste precious time when my mojo was actually in residence, I pulled out my regular, everday papers and used them to make a Christmas-themed layout.  The only holiday items I used were 2 Christmas brads and holiday rub-ons left over from last year which were in the appropriately labeled box.  

Which papers did I use?  Well, I shamelessly mixed things up from a few different MY MIND'S EYE Collections (I'm a rebel that way), namely the COLLECTABLE COLLECTION and the SWEETEST THING COLLECTION.  And because I was playing with My Mind's Eye papers, I decided to play along with the DEAR SANTA CHALLENGE.  

Want to see a few close-ups?  Here you go:

To create this...er...cluster piece thingy...I started with a Bright-Eyed Label from the Sweetest Thing Bluebell Collection because it looked like a snowflake to me.  See, you can just see the edge of the "b" sticking out at this angle.  I wanted a little extra-layering so I put one of the Happiness decorative flower-brad combinations on top (from the Collectable Collection), although I switched out the actual brad with one from last year's Christmas collection.  My cluster thingy still needed a lil' something extra so I hand cut three tags and added "Ho Ho Ho" rub-ons to them before layering them along the bottom.  A little artfully arranged loose thread and I called this cluster complete!

Of course, I couldn't use these papers without doing some fussy cutting.  And although my stickers came from a non-holiday themed collection, they work absolutely perfectly for this Christmas layout!

These rub-on snowflakes and little splatters of mist add nice subtle layers behind this fussy cut piece, don't you think?

Even though my papers were from different collections, they coordinated so beautifully that I wanted to use them ALL on my layout!!!  See?

So - what do you think?  Was I successful in creating a Christmas look with my non-Christmas papers?