Some of you may know that I design my own greeting cards. This week, I decided to create a card for my dearest husband. We have been married for 5 years, and in addition to the delicious cookie bouquet from Cookies by Design, I wanted to do something a little personal.
My biggest project is holiday greeting cards, and I usually start planning in early to mid-October in order to have everything to created by the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I only had about an hour for this project.
I decided to create a card for Chris that celebrates our five years together with the traditional materials for each of the years. I don't think anyone actually know these things offhand, so I went to look them up on Wikipedia:
1st anniversary: Paper
2nd anniversary: Cotton
3rd anniversary: Leather
4th anniversary: Linen / Silk
5th anniversary: Wood
Luckily, I basically had all these materials on hand. I used the a piece of white copy paper, a little piece of a cotton square, the trimming from a double-sided leather belt of Chris that needed to be sized down, and a tiny piece of mulch. "What about the linen or silk?" you ask...
I thought I had a little piece of leftover silk from a dress that I had tailored. It turns out that you should never count on finding something that you haven't seen in about a year.
What to do?!
I took Chris' favorite pair of linen pants and cut a tiny bit out of the seam. Eek! I'm sure he'll never even notice.
I used a purple card that I had leftover from a prior batch of greeting cards. I pasted all 5 items on the cover of the card to represent the 5 years we've been together.
I made a little engagement and wedding ring for decoration of the inside of the card along with the anniversary wishes.
Lastly, the magic ingredient that gave it a personal touch was the red and gold paper I used for the little plus and equal signs in my design. I used scraps from the paper we used for the escort cards at our wedding.
Here's the result:
Yes, it's pretty amateur looking and obviously homemade. It's certainly not my best design, and I wouldn't even really call it good looking. The plus signs look like they were made by a first-grader, especially since they didn't even end up as the same size! (I can't tell you how difficult it is to cut right angles with plus signs that small.) But I love the fact that I was able to make something for Chris and make it really personal. Maybe he was just lying, but he said that it was his favorite card that I've made. He didn't even mind that his pants were missing a tiny chunk. Mission accomplished.
Materials used for this project:
- Lavender A4 card and pearlized envelope from Paper Source
- Silver paper from Paper Source
- Vellum (for the engagement ring)
- Office Paper
- Cotton Square
- Leather Belt
- Linen Pants
- Mulch
- Scissors
- A quarter, nickel, and penny to trace the outlines for the rings
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