A Winter Thank You Project

Hi there,  So glad to have you stop by for a visit today!  I hope you are enjoying the holidays.  I thought this would be a great time for a fun thank you card challenge.  We all need thank you cards at this time of the year and frankly, I got a late start on making Christmas art and wanted to keep it going a bit longer.  So I created a winter-themed set of thank you library pocket cards.  You might remember that I made a set of library pocket Christmas cards at the beginning of the holiday season.  I thought they were so cute and that the format would work great for my Christmas thank yous.  

Plus I wanted to try my hand at a few very cool techniques I have seen lately.  Did you see Tammy Tutterow's frosty debossed snowflakes?  Very cool!  This is my first attempt and I think I might have scraped off too much crackle paint because the debossed areas aren't very crackly.  And of course, you can see the crackles better IRL.  The silver snowflake is one of the bronze ones I sell in my Etsy boutique.  I altered it by dripping Ranger Silver Alcohol ink mixative on it.  

Then Shelly Hickox took the crackle deboss to the next level by applying it to die cut foil tape.  Check out her gorgeous tag here.  What a seriously cool technique that is!  Mine is a little shaky.  I made it exactly the way Shelly described and I think I used the exact same materials, but I had a bit of a problem getting the Rock Candy distress paint to stick to the foil tape.  It dried and cracked beautifully, but when I handled it, the crackle paint came off in chunks.  I added more two more times, but each time it came off.  You can see a couple of places where it is missing on the front snowflake.  I finally gave up and figured only a card maker would notice it was missing anyway so I can probably use it as is.  

Inspired by another amazing technique and tutorial on Shelly Hickcox's blog, I tried her Faux Mercury Glass technique.  I was having problems with my heat gun so I only applied one coat of UTEE to this guy.  It really needs a second coat to get the glassy depth to it.  But it was a lot of fun to do and something I will definitely try again ( I have a new heat gun coming from Stampin' Up so will give it another try next week).  

I mixed a bit of the silver alcohol ink mixative with some Stickles for a silvery bling on the corrugated cardboard holly leaves.  It really doesn't look great in the photo, but it looks quite pleasing IRL. 

I used some lovely winter bird vintage images from LunaGirl.  With my Photoshop Elements, I erased the 'Merry Christmas' from each image and added 'Thank You' to each card.  They were printed on my home printer and distressed with Vintage Photo distress ink.  

I used a library card stamp from PaperTrey Ink to stamp the back of the tag.  My thank you message will be written on that side.  

This was such a fun little project.  You can make these very easily.  I used a free template from Mirkwood Designs to trace and cut the pocket and you can download a sheet of library cards from Pine is Here.  There's some scissor work involved, but I think in the end you will find it very enjoyable to make.  These sweet little cards will fit perfectly into an A2 size envelope.  

How about giving one a try?  You certainly do not have to make a set of 4.  If you make one and want to share, please leave a link in the comments section here so we can all see and be inspired by your work!

Thanks again for stopping by and for your lovely comments!

Products Used:

Alterations Vintage Lace Die	Sizzix Flower and Vine #3	Burlap String 10 Colors	Claudine Hellmuth Gesso	Tim Holtz Mini Holidays 3 Stamp Set
Kraft Corrugated Cardboard	Tim Holtz Snow Flurries Texture Fade	Wendy Vecchi Seriously Art	Bronze Filigree Snowflakes	Biscotti Perfect Pearls Mist
Vintage Photo Distress Ink	Foil Tape Sheets

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