Recycle Pretty Wrapping Paper To Make Your Cards

I recently received a wonderful birthday gift from my brother, Patrick, and his wife, Margaret.  Margaret is very crafty and has a great color sense.  She had wrapped the present so nicely.  The frog teapot, tea cups and sugar and creamer were all wrapped separately in brightly colored tissue paper.  The box containing everything was wrapped in beautiful wrapping paper and finished off with an expertly tied and embellished bow.  It was truly a gift just opening the present!  My dining room table was covered with bright colors from the tissue paper and then there was the lovely wrapping paper and ribbon.  Of course, you just can't throw out this wealth of goodness.  

However, this is what I think about everything and I am quickly running out of space to put all the "goodies" that come into my daily life!  Which leads me to my epiphany that I'd like to share with you.  Why not use the wrapping paper from the gift to make a thank you card  or a card set for the person sending the gift?  

I chose to wrap 2" squares of plain white card stock with the wrapping paper.  Then, I made the designs on the two cards I have to share with you below. 

Here are close ups of each card:

Birthday Card Using Graphic 45 Bird Song

Okay, so no posts for three months, then three posts the same day!  What can I tell you, except that I am erratic.  I guess I'll have to add that to the disclaimer in the sidebar.

I "lifted" this idea from a Graphic 45 post "Bird Song, Happiness Card."  I changed the bottom of the card and did not use the happiness phrase or the bow because I wanted to use it for a birthday card for one of my best male friends.  I used a chip board bird piece with G45 staples brads instead of the phrase and ribbon.

To go to the Graphic 45 site for the pdf instructions for the original click HERE

 Front

Back

Tim Holtz Tag for January, 2013

The craft room is still a mess.  However, thanks to my friends, Joanne and Terri, I have the Tim Holtz tag finished and ready to post on his blog!  And it is not even the last day of the month yet!  My friends and I called a meeting of the Tres Loonies and decided to do a tag a month as part of our projects this coming year.  Don't you just love fresh resolutions in January!  They are so new and full of exhilaration.

First Post of 2013 -- What Happened To The End of 2012?

Hi There. You might wonder about the gap in posts, or not, since I'm an irregular blogger at best.  First, there was Kristkindl Markt the last weekend of November.  This is the Country Club Congregational United Church of Christ's annual event.  I'd been making cards to sell for several months, my friend, Marie, came from San Francisco to help and one of my best friend's sister in law, Laura, shared the booth with me.  Laura is the one that got me started as she had the booth for many years before I got involved!  She is quite talented as you can see from some of her lovely baskets shown in the pictures.

 Here I am with Laura, you can see her baskets and my cards.

This is Marie. 

I made the display board in the background with the new G45 Nutcracker Sweet paper as a colorful background.

After the big push for Kristkindl Markt, there isn't much left to tell of my December.  I got sick, went to bed for three weeks, went to doctor's appointments, and missed Christmas.  Fortunately, it comes around every year, so I can start looking forward to next year.  

2013 seems to have started off better!  I didn't craft ANY in December and when I first visited my craft room in January it looked like this

I think the first resolution of the new year is to organize the craft room!  I've been talking to my favorite handy man for hire about building some shelves in the closet so I can store paper.....now where did I put his information?