Thank you cards featuring "altered" Christmas gift wrap

 Here are the thank you cards I created for acknowledging the blessings we received over the holiday season.  I saved aside a piece of nice gift wrap to use as the background for my cards.  I like that the paper is significant to the season.  

This was my third attempt at making cards with this

paper.  The first one was a fail because the snowflake cellophane I saved would not adhere to the paper with heat so I had to scrap that idea.  Idea #2 seemed much too stark in design and execution so I scrapped that idea as well.  I am much happier with this "altered" version of the paper and it made all the difference in the look of the final product.  You can check here to see how I altered my snowflake paper!!
After altering my paper I cut it up into 4"x 5.25" pieces.  I laid it over my card base and found that there was too much contrast between the decorative paper and the cardstock so I altered the edges of my cardstock as well.  I used a dark brown ink pad to rub down the edges and the red brown stamp pad I used for the decorative paper to add the stippling.  Much happier with that look.

With my edges all done I glued my decorative paper to the center of my card base and stitched all the way around with my sewing machine using a dark brown thread.  I created the greetings using Corel Draw combining the words with the tag shape and laser printed them.  I trimmed them out using my small craft scissors and used a regular hole punch to punch the hole.  I found this fiber in my stash which coordinated perfectly with the paper - yellow, rust and brown!!  I cut two five inch lengths and tied them with a half hitch knot onto my tag.  I adhered my tag to the front of my cards using double sided tape.
The greetings are all digital images.  The top left Thank you is from Melonheadz, the top right Thank you . . is from Paper Dreams of Mine & the other graphics are from Graphics Fairy, the many thank yous on the lower left is from DZ Doodles and the lower right one is also from Melonheadz.  The tag is from Dana's Inspirations.
I am very happy with how these turned out.  I will spend part of the day tomorrow letting everyone know how much I appreciated their thoughtful gifts.

Therese

Altered gift wrap for Thank you cards

I like to use a piece of gift wrap that arrives on one of my Christmas presents to make my thank you cards for the season.  This year I chose this very unique snowflake gift wrap in rust and ivory that my daughter wrapped my gift in.
I started by stamping a script stamp all over the paper using a reddish brown ink (Brilliance) and applying gold embossing powder here and there so I would get some gold highlights overall. Once it was embossed the rest of the script seemed to be less prominent so
I decided I needed to add a design

element with a bit more body to offset the delicate snowflakes already there and to provide a darker element to tie in with my tag greetings.  I dug these two snowflakes from my fun foam stash.  To make the larger one more delicate I punched holes in the larger balls using a regular hole punch.  Much better!!

 I used regular glue stick to adhere all the pieces to a clear mount and stamped it all over my paper using the same red brown ink.
On the left, you can see the piece of brown paper I was using on my work surface to catch all the over stamping from altering my paper and my card fronts.  It is looking pretty good and will no doubt end up in a future project as background paper after I have added a few more bits of "left over" paint over it in the next month or two.  I add all my left over paint from any project to paper - either one that already has some on it or a completely blank one if I do not have one that coordinates.  It always gives me very unique backgrounds for my projects.  You can check out the cards I made with my paper here.

Therese

Work area in my studio

This is what my work area looks like since the beginning of the new year. Needless to say, it has not always looked like this but I had to clean up my space completely before the holidays because we had company and we needed the space in this room to accommodate a bed.  Fortunately, it was DH and I who slept in the bed so being surrounded by boxes of supplies was not a surprise to us.  I am making a serious effort to clean up after each project and keep the area ready for the next one!!
Therese