Thank You Calendar Card

After returning from a family trip to Honolulu, I had to crank up the gears to get my thank you notes in the mail.  Here's what I came up with to express my gratitude.  I decided to make a calendar thank you card because I still had some Vippies calendars leftover from my Christmas cards.  Starting with some wrapping paper (super large sheet for only $3 or $4 ) purchased from Celebrations (next door to Mapunapuna Ben Franklin Crafts), I glued (Elmer's spray adhesive) pieces of the wrapping paper to 6"x12" pastel card stock panels.  The wrapping paper is too thin to successfully use in the Sizzix die that I used to cut the card base so it needed to be backed.  Next I used (with the magnetic platform) one of the thin circle dies in the Spellbinders set to cut out circles from white marking pen paper.  Onto these circles  I stamped the Sister Stamp image, colored it in with Copic pens and paper pieced the kiminos using origami paper from BFC.  For the background on the image circle, I smudged the edges with a light blue ink and applied the bluish Frantage (Stampendous) embossing powder (purchased from BFC).

I tried a new technique for coloring the girls' hair (always a problem for me). I used several shades of grey Copic pens to shade the hair and then went over it with a brown watercolor pencil to add the color.  I didn't wet the pencil but I think the result was good because the watercolor pencil is soft which makes it easy to apply the color.  I cut the 'thanks' using a Paper Smooches die and adhered it to the card by running it through the Xyron sticker maker.  I kept the sentiment near the top so that it would be hidden when the card was folded into a stand-up calendar.

For the cherry blossoms I used my old Carl punches.  Because I wanted to make the flowers more 3-D, I decided to use a pink crinkle origami paper.  However, the crinkle paper got stuck in the punch so I cut it together with pink card stock and that did the trick.  I glued both paper flowers together in the center and added tiny pearls. When the petals are fluffed out they look great and very airy like real cherry blossoms.  Okay, that's enough for today.  Hope you were able to follow along and found this post informative.  Thanks for visiting!