Re-cycling fond memories

I know many friends and family members that suffer from "sentimental card clutter", which is the art of keeping all cards ever sent to you. I view this as an art form and I can understand this mentality, but I like to re-use and recycle versus storing the cards. It's my new venture in continually trying to downsize the amount of "stuff and things" I'm willing to hold onto.

This is a re-cycled birthday card that my brother sent to me. I loved the sparkly butterflies that were on the card, so I cut out the largest one to use and recycled the base of the card to make a new sheet of paper. I love how the glittered paper turned out!

 I use to try and cut apart store bought cards and re-use them but I just never liked the way they looked, until now...I used the steps for making your own hand made paper that you can find HERE to get this lovely glittery paper. It makes me feel good to know I reused the card to make something brand new from it. I hope you can see the tiny flecks of sparkle in the sheet.

I also enjoy hand sewing onto my cards, it gives them texture without adding extra bulk. I did a Running stitch around the outside edge of the accent paper and I added French Knots for the butterfly trail. Adding hand sewing to hand made paper can really elevate your project to a "wow" status.

 The soft frayed deckled edges to hand made paper just makes me swoon, I love that look. Here, my accent paper is layered over another piece of orange hand made paper that has a completely different texture. I think the degrees of sensory touch you get with the different textures makes for a yummy card.

It's no April Fools joke that the art of sending a card to someone is in decline with all the texting, twittering and Face Book messages that currently goes on in this day and age. But, I think everyone agrees, that when you receive a handmade card in the mail, you know you are special!

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No joke :)