Celebrate Earth Day by making cards from trash! — Pals April Blog hop

Welcome to the Pals Blog Hop for April. To celebrate Earth Day,  this month we are showcasing projects that feature recycled, re-purposed, or earthy/recycling themed elements.

You may just be starting the blog hop or may have come from Natalie Bradley at Natalie Bradley Events on the Pals Hop. If you get off track at any time, the full lineup below will help you move along from blog to blog so you see all of the amazing creations.

For Earth Day, I decided to make an actual Earth Day card, using the World Map stamp, which is my current Favorite Stamp Ever.  Also, I was environmentally-conscious and made this card from torn-up bits of the Holiday catalog!

I tore up bits of the catalog and brayered them with Crushed Curry, Bermuda Bay, and Midnight Muse ink.   Underneath all the embossing, you can see this is the page with the Truly Grateful stamp set:

Then I slathered Mod Podge over them and stuck them onto a piece of vellum card stock.  This made the inside of the card, while the outside is the torn catalog pieces seen through a haze of vellum and Mod Podge.

See how wrinkly the card is?  The vellum got soaked in the Mod Podge and shriveled up.  I smashed in under a heavy book for about a day to get it flat again.  But it never flattened out completely, so when I was done I added ribbon to keep it closed.  (The ribbon is the Naturals Cotton ribbon dyed with Pacific Point reinker with a couple drops of Island Indigo and Elegant Eggplant.)

I stamped both sides of the vellum with the World Map background stamp, using Versamark and gold embossing powder.  The two sides look pretty different: I smashed the stamp very hard onto the front of the card, which smeared Versamark over the uneven surface of the vellum, creating long, wavy blurs of gold when I poured on the embossing powder:

I was more delicate with the inside surface, which shows some gaps where the ink and powder didn’t penetrate:

While I am happy with the way it turned out, this is the most time-consuming card I have ever made, not really from actually making it, but from all the time I spent waiting for things to happen:

• waiting for the catalog pieces to dry after I covered them with ink with my brayer (30 minutes)
• waiting for the Mod Podge to dry (like, a whole day because I put it on very thick and sloppy)
• waiting for the vellum to straighten out a bit under some heavy books (two days before I gave up and accepted that it wasn’t going to get any flatter than it was already)
• waiting for the cotton ribbon to dry after I soaked it in reinker (about 4 hours before I was convinced it wasn’t going smear over my precious card)

The next stop is Kerry Willard Bray at Peonies and Paper Chains on the Pals Blog Hop! Thanks for visiting and  I  hope to see you next month.

1. Sue Becker at RnR Stamping
2. Debra Simonis at Deb’s Stampin’ Grounds
3. Nicole Watt at Pixel Maven’s Retreat
4. Colleen Mollema at Uncanny Crafting
5. Diane Roberts at Score at Four and a Quarter
6. Debbie Mageed at Secret Stamper
7. Rae Harper-Burnet at Wild West Paper Arts
8. Jackie Diediker at Stampin’ Jackie
9. Lisa Ann Bernard at Queen B Creations
10. Mary Fish at Stampin’ Pretty
11. Martie Pollard at Crafty Bandit
12. Shannon Hokanson at Paper Works by Shannon
13. Dawn Tidd at Tiddbits from Dawn
14. Patti MacLeith at Papercrafts by Patti
15. Goldie Shaul at Punch and Stamp with Goldie
16. Susan Itell at Simple Stampin
17. Christie Crosby at Stampin’ Creativity
18. Peggy Noe at prettypapercards.com
19. Katy McGloin at Just Fun Stamping
20. Natalie Bradley at Natalie Bradley Events
21. Amanda at Inkflair
22. Kerry Willard Bray at Peonies and Paper Chains
23. Brian King at Stamp with Brian

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