Quick layered Christmas Card with wrapping paper

This entry is brought to you as part of the Cards for Heroes mini-bloghop - http://cardsforheroes.org/bloghop

One of the things I like best about card-making is that you don’t have to spend a fortune to make a pretty card. You can do a lot with recycled materials – you don’t need to toss out your old birthday and christmas cards – it’s easy to make them into something new and fresh. Another great recycled material to use is wrapping paper. If you keep your eyes open after Christmas, you  can get a whole roll of the stuff with a great repeating pattern on it for just a few dollars! So what do you do with it? You can cut it, fold it, layer it, paste it, rearrange it, and the repeating patterns on the paper make it very easy to make 3-dimensional layered cards… its only disadvantage is that it is NOT acid-free, so your masterpiece is not going to last forever. So it doesn’t work well in a scrapbook, but it’s great for making quick and easy greeting cards.

Today’s card uses a basic christmas tree design. The original price was $2 for four sheets of paper, but I got it for 50c in February.  That’s a lot of cards!

Wrapping paper for layered card

The medallion design on this paper has several basic layers in it that are easy to cut out. The base layer is the holly outline… the second is the yellow outline on the medallion, and the last is the Christmas tree itself. Cut roughly around the number of medallions you need for your card, and then trim them up with nail scissors. The curving blade makes it easier to get around the fiddly curves in the design, and the small blade lets you see what you’re doing. When you’ve finished cutting out the medallions, glue the largest layer onto your cardstock.

Now take a sheet of thin foam popdots (the larger ones will be too thick when you have more than one layer of foam in the card.) One of the advantages of doing a card like this is that you can use up your foam scraps… make a sort of foamy mosaic on the back of your layer, then peel off the cover sheet and stick it down. Then repeat with your second layer, and any other layers in your design.

When you have your layers stuck down, you can finish the card however you like. My favourite method is to ink up the edges. Just turn the card over and drag the edges across the stamp pad until they’re as inked up as you want them to be.

I finished my card with a holiday greeting and a couple of star brads. And there  you have it. One layered card with about five minutes work…

And now you’ve seen my card idea, I hope you’ll enjoy going on to view the rest of the blogs on the Hop… I hope you get lots of great ideas to make cards for yourself and for Cards for Heroes. I just love the thought that a few minutes of my time and effort can bring cheer to somebody else’s life… I get to have fun making stuff, and then it gets used to bless others! If you want to make Christmas cards for CFH, just remember that they need to be in the mail by November 1st. They have a long way to travel to get to the Middle East and back before Christmas! Make a few, make a lot, make however many you’ve got time for – every card makes a difference to someone.

And the next blog in the hop is - Rachel’s blog.

Tags: Cards for Heroes, Christmas, crafts