moving announcements using map die cuts

My family went through some big changes recently!  We packed up and moved from Southern California all the way up to the very top of Washington state.  Did I mention we did it all in less than 14 days?  It was crazy.

Now that things have started to settle down and I'm not spending every free moment unpacking (don't get me wrong, there is still a ton to unpack), I got creative and made some moving announcements. 

I was inspired by a few I had seen on Pinterest (mainly this one), and knew that I wanted to use kraft envelopes because they remind me of moving boxes and packing paper. You can also see a bit of the return address stamp that I designed (more on that later).

I used an old Thomas Bros. California map book to make a bunch of USA die cuts and printed up the cards using my new Canon PIXMA MG5320 printer.  The inside has all of our contact info and a picture of our family in front of our new house.  I loved printing the picture right on the card - big time saver!

I wanted to show the big variety in map prints on each of the cards, and my helper got involved too.  I also put an iridescent heart on our new hometown using American Crafts foam squares for dimension. 

And speaking of dimension, check out this awesome card that my friend Christine made for me!  I am so sad to be too far for more crafternoons with her.  Now I need to find some new crafty friends here.