Giving Thanks Cards I

©Michele Emerson-Roberts 2014

I love working ahead, and will often start creating for the next year’s holiday a day or two after this year’s holiday. Take a peek at some of my Thanksgiving cards for 2015.

The Grummer company and family have always promoted using “stuff” you have on hand that otherwise might just go into the trash, whether it is using onion skins to make gorgeous paper, using those dried needles from your Christmas tree as inclusions, or just not wasting your resources. I am a firm believer in “waste not want not” and re-purpose whenever I can.

Join me in this adventure - I would love to see what you come up with. Here are just a few Thanksgiving cards created with “stuff” that someone else would have thought of as “trash”.

Supplies:

• Any of the Arnold Grummer™ paper making kits
• A sunny window
• Blender, cello sponges and soft towels
• Personal paper cutter, scissors
• Scor-Pal™
• Beacon™  ZipDry™, Double sided foam tape or foam dots
• Scraps of rusty brown paper (think junk mail, etc.)
• Dies:    Spellbinders™ fall leaves, decretive tag

CheeryLynn™ words “Happy Thanksgiving” and pumpkins

Dreamweaver™ oval

• Autumn themed embossing folder
• Spellbinders Grand Calibur™ Machine
• Paper sanding block
• Scrap of autumn toned paper
• Scraps of autumn toned magazine pages/ junk mail etc
• Scraps of glossy white card stock
• Scrap of golden colored handmade paper (for the decretive tag)
• Scrap of chip board large enough for the “(Happy Thanksgiving” word dies)
• Ink pads:   Kaleidacolor™ Creole Spice
                   ColorBox™ dark brown and olive green ink pads
• ColorBox™ Stylus handle and soft tip
• Large “Thanksgiving” word stamp (or computer generate it)
• “Happy Thanksgiving” stamp to fit the tag die
• A2 envelopes (or make matching envelopes using the AG envelope template) 

Instructions:

1. Follow the directions found in any of the Arnold Grummer™ paper making kits to create several sheets of rusty brown/burnt orange heavy weight paper.
2. When the sheets of paper are dry, cut the sheets in half (8 ½” x 5 ½”).
3. Score at 4 ¼” and fold in half to create the card bases.
4. Use autumn themed embossing folders to emboss the fronts of all the cards.
5. Stamp the large “Thanksgiving” word onto the scrap of autumn toned paper with dark brown ink.
6. Stamp “Happy Thanksgiving” onto the scrap of golden tone handmade paper with the Kaleidacolor™ Creole Spice ink.
7. Apply Creole Spice inks to scraps of glossy card stock with the Stylus™ tool.
8. Use the Stylus™ tool to apply the olive  green ink to the scrap of chip board
9. Die cut the decretive tag from the stamped golden scrap.
10. Die cut the oval from the stamped autumn toned scrap paper.
11. Die cut the fall leaves from the inked glossy card stock.
12. Die cut the pumpkins from the scrap magazine pages/junk mail
13. Die cut fall leaves from the scrap magazine pages/junk mail
14. Die cut the words “Happy Thanksgiving” from the inked chip board
    (Always save your scraps for other projects.)
15. Use the paper sanding block to lightly sand the inked glossy card stock die cut leaves.

Assembling the cards:

Attach the die cut words and the pumpkins with ZipDry™ adhesive. All of the other pieces are attached with small pieces of double sided foam tape or dots.

Refer to photos for ideas. These completed 25 of the 50 Thanksgiving cards I needed. I did several of each design, and ALL were made from “stuff” that someone else would have tossed!

Next up: “Giving Thanks Cards II”