More Valentines!

Hi there, this post has a bit of a challenge involved. It involves taking a pre-made card and turning it into a different card. The red and white card was some cards that a friend was getting rid of and of course I thought I would have a purpose for them being an avid paper-crafter. The black, white and gold cards were purchased at a dollar store as they were inexpensive and I was looking for that size of envelope and they worked perfectly.

The black, white and gold card original size is 4 3/4 x 3 3/8-inches, a perfect size for Valentine's cards or Thank-you notes, the back of the card is stamped as an Anna Griffin Design. I thought not only could I use the envelopes but the cardstock print was rather quite pretty as well. So, I went about on my challenge to create a simple card that was attractive. I believe I accomplished this -- I hope you will agree! My finished card is an A2 size card 4 1/4 x 5 1/2-inches. I began by trimming the card front from the decorative print note card and layered it to black cardstock and then onto a white card base. The pretty gold sections in the printed card was the inspiration to die-cut a design from shiny gold cardstock and I chose to use a D-Lites die from Spellbinders called the Frills Etched Die #S1-017. Next I layered that piece onto a strip of black cardstock with a banner notch cut at one end. One of my favorite methods for cutting banner notches is to use my hexagon punch. A square punch or even a heart punch works wonderfully as well.

This die-cut frill was begging to frame a beautiful flower or medallion. I chose to create a tea-bag folded medallion using pearl text weight paper. The basic circle method with a top layer fold back progression was used. If you would like to learn more about tea-bag folding I do have a class called Fabulous Folds available in DVD or online format through Annie's or I also have some copies of the DVD in stock as well as my Tea Bag Folding Through the Seasons book, just leave me a message.
Back to this card, the finishing touch on this card was to create a sentiment panel. I die-cut a small label square and cut it in half and attached a die-cut sentiment to it and then layered it to the bottom right on the card front.

The second card with an original size of 5 1/4 x 3 3/4-inches also includes a tea-bag folded medallion that makes use of a square fold with a progression folding the top left and right layers to the center. To add a bit more visual interest I applied some decorative tape to a cardstock panel and trimmed to 1-inch wide. The words "LOVE" and "YOU" (Sizzix die template #560025) were also cut from the tape/cardstock panel.

Hope you enjoyed seeing these "from this to that" cards and you are inspired to create! Keep watching for more Valentine's Inspiration!
Creatively Yours,
Sharon