Lilac handbag card

I made a card on the weekend that is so darned cute! I got the template from Mirkwood Designs, and it's actually a template to make an envelope, but I opted for a card instead. The lady I was making it for is the mother of a friend of mine, and she's always doing nice things for me, so I wanted to do a little pay back for her. (I also put together a nice planter for her bursting with all kinds of colorful flowers!) Anyway, this lady loves little prissy handbags, like the nice evening handbags, so I thought the handbag card was appropriate to make for her.

My mother in law was also making one with me, and her color choice for our paper was in the lilac shades -- her favorite, and actually the favorite of the lady I was making the card for too! So I decided that I would make an all over print of actual lilac flowers. I took a picture of my neighbour's beautiful French lilacs, and made a seamless fill out of a part of the picture, which I flooded to print an entire card stock page of the print. Then we traced the template on the back and cut it out. We each made up our own little verses, and printed them out on lilac colored paper. Then it was on to the fun stuff -- the decorating! We're hooked on those metallic peel offs right now. (Our stamp and scrapping stores around here are loaded with them!) We used a border and edged the flap of the purse with that, added a little flower to look like a snap, and put on the "Thinking of you" sentiment. Inside we used a butterfly punch on some of the scraps of the lilac print and glued them on under the verse. My mother in law, at this point decided her card was finished, but I was determined that mine had to have a handle! So I wired some silver beads and added the handle. Then I thought it really did need a little closure of some sort, but I didn't have any Velcro other than heavy duty stuff, so I decided I was going to run out to the dollar store the next day to get some of those little Velcro dots that have the adhesive on the back of them. They're a little more lightweight for a paper project. As we kept admiring our cards, I thought it would be really cute too if I could find a little wee mirror to attach to inside flap of the purse card. I knew I had seen packages of small mirror tiles at Michaels or Walmart at one point, but I remembered them being square, and was preferring it be round. Plus I didn't really want to buy a package of them, when I really only wanted one. The next day at the dollar store, I was so happy to find a butt-ugly compact of freaky looking eye shadow, only because it had the cutest little round mirror in it, and I was sure I could pop it out of the plastic casing and attach it to my card. I did pop it out, and it worked, and it really finished the card off quite nicely. Kathleen's mom oggled at this little mirror too. She thought it was such a creative touch! (by the way, you may note how I signed the card as "Kathleen's Colleague". This is because that is what her mom calls me, as I call her by "Kathleen's mom"!)

So anyway, that was my lilac handbag card. It was super easy to make and the possibilities of what you could do to decorate it are endless! They'd be so cute as invitations to a bridal shower, or even thank you cards from the bride! Or, as in my case, just a little "because" card!


Olivia