With the holidays just a few short weeks away, I am on the look out these days for good small gift ideas for all those folks on my Christmas list that I want to remember with a little something. One idea I really like is putting together a set of note-cards with matching envelopes. It's a gift made from the heart, and is useful and practical for most anyone on your list. Best yet, it can be quickly put together using supplies most of us already have on hand.
When creating a set of note-cards, I try to keep my design fairly simple and easy to replicate. I also like to keep the supplies to a minimum to keep cost down, and leave the design fairly flat so that it could be mailed. Here I used just two sheets of white cardstock and one piece of patterned paper to make four note-cards. To add interest to the design, I added a paper doily in the center, followed by a die cut label I cut from scrap paper. The circle in the center is leftover pieces of doily I've had sitting around forever. I added hand-stamped sentiment strips and vintage buttons, and Santas I fussy cut from patterned paper. Talk about an inexpensive way to get multiple focal images.
To dress up plain, ordinary envelopes, I simply cut a piece of patterned paper to size and adhered it to the front of the envelope. Since I had only one sheet of patterned paper to do all four envelopes, cutting a piece for just the front was a paper-saving solution. Print mailing labels, and these fancy envelopes can even go right through the mail. Wouldn't that be a fun surprise when you open up your mailbox?
For a gift presentation, I simply tied the note-cards and envelopes together with some Christmas ribbon and added a vintage-inspired postcard and a holiday quote that was leftover from my envelope project. My up-cycled item? The fun red mesh bow I added on top. It came from a bag of oranges I got at the grocery store.
I don't know about you, but I love getting my scrapping supplies online, that end up with lots of this....
as you know at LESSology is all about recycling and I am going to show you how I altered this mailing box into a gift box....
gesso is what I used to cover-up all the unwanted text on the box...
now let's work with water colors....
remember that old book I altered? all the cut out pages now become green grass
green grass, blue sky, white clouds.... now let you imagination take flight......
now this little box is ready for a gift to get in, and then off it goes......
Hello friends! It's
Yvonne! My mail project is an upcycled priority mail box! :)
I started off with this small little box which I covered with brown paper.
Added some paper scraps and stamping...
