Aloha, all!
I love handmade papers! The very first time I ever used any was with my wedding invitations, 10 years ago next month. We planned a North Carolina beach wedding, and I so wanted some beach themed handmade papers to accent my invitations (which, of course, I planned to make myself). It was my good fortune to have a top-notch paper shop where I lived, and I found just the perfect papers. Since then, though, I've not had much chance to work with handmade papers.
Then, for my birthday last month, my sister-in-law sent me a bag of samples of handmade papers which I could hardly wait to use. After a week's vacation, then another week or so off for yet another illness (I'm good now!) I finally today had the opportunity to spend time using them – first of all to make a Thank You note for Mary!
The bag of papers was full of different colors, textures, sizes and shapes. So it took a bit for me to look at papers and mentally consider what I had that would complement the papers in my hands and vice versa. I decided on these two papers, turned around, and there was the Number of Years Stamp Set sitting on my work table. It wasn't the numbers that caught my eye; it was the lovely floral element in that set. So off I went to arrange papers and figure out what to do.
With handmade papers, I really like to keep some torn edges showing to emphasize the naturalness of the paper. But I also don't shy away from cutting if if I need to. In any case, I certainly don't waste any! That little piece of the rust-colored paper is just slightly larger than what you see. None of it is wasted hiding behind the blue paper on the bottom. That also gave me a large piece to cut out the butterfly from the Bold Butterfly Framelits set. The blue paper was about the same width as the card front (5-1/2"), but a bit taller than I put on the card. With the scrap from this paper, I punched the small butterfly. All other scraps are back in the paper bag. They'll definitely be used!
I found the "Thank You" stamps in another stamp set I pulled out to see if it went with this card (flowers didn't, Thank You did). That set, Helping Me Grow, is in the Stampin' Up! 2016 Occasions Catalog, as is the Number of Years Stamp Set. The flowers in that set will have to wait for another card.
I'm so glad that the camera picked up some of the sparkle in these papers! They really are multi-dimensional, and a joy to work with.
