All occasion cards featuring serendipity heart die cuts layered with gold embossed mesh and hand stitched to ivory paper

 I love the simplicity of these cards and cannot usually get myself to leave it at that.  I had excavated a piece of beautiful ivory paper in my last "looking for something" session which was sitting on my desk.  I was wanting to get some inspiration for a Valentine card so I started with these.  I trimmed out two little rectangles of gold embossed mesh (window screening) which I made a while back which were just what these little red serendipity heart die cuts needed!!  I layered them onto the beautiful textured paper and used my sewing machine without thread to create some holes so I could hand stitch the hearts and mesh to the paper.  I used some red perle thread and did running stitch down and then back up to imitate back stitch.  Worked perfectly and I love how they worked out!!  Therese

Cards for a silent auction prize in a fun cellophane carrier that works like a book

I have raided my stash of cards to create a prize for our silent auction at our Gramma Africa fundraiser in March.  I have chosen 16 cards and created two long cellophane carriers for them by adding double sided tape between each card - creates a bit of an envelope. From the width of the cellophane I managed to make 8 openings with a little to spare which I trimmed off.  After a bit of brainstorming I added a piece of letter tape which joined the two last cards to each other and secured the folds in between.  They are sort like a book and stand very nicely.  We are needing a small foot print for our prizes so I think I will recommend one set standing and the other laying open.  People will be able to see all the cards without actually touching them which will be good.  

I wanted a little bag to hold them for their trip to the venue and the trip from the venue to their final home.  I chose this very textured paper was eye catching so I made a custom bag the size I needed and sealed the bottom with hot glue as the layers from each side folded in.  I added black organza ribbon handles.  This will work very well, is minimal packaging and it also looks pretty!!  Therese