Nuts About You!

This past spring, in the midst of wedding planning and wedding shopping, I went to The Paper Place in Toronto with a few lovely friends. I had already purchased print-your-own invitations kits, but was looking for some paper to switch out some that came in the kits to go more along with our colour scheme and taste.

While I didn't end up finding the paper we ended up using in our invitations, they did have all kinds of FABULOUS stuff. Case in point, these awesome squirrel paper clips:

I can't find the paper clips in their online store, however you can buy the same clips on this Etsy site.

If I had been to this store before purchasing the invite kits, I probably would have had a completely different invitation design in the end, they had all sorts of lovely clips, not just squirrels but a few different animals and these cute little birds.

In the end, I couldn't incorporate paper clips into my invite design, but I did manage to still craft a fantastic card for my fiance. I started with one of the clips, as well as a piece of olive-y green cardstock and a matching envelope that I purchased at The Paper Place. I used some tan, beige, and chocolate-coloured cardstock that I already had, as well as a brown felt pen.

I searched out oak tree leaves online to find a suitable silhouette to base my design on. I didn't have a printer available, so I freehanded a template on some scrap white paper whilst looking at my laptop screen. Once I was satisfied with my design, I cut it out with scissors. The acorn design was freehand drawn onto the two separate cardstocks and cut out with scissors. I test-drew "nuts" onto some white paper and transfered the design with pencil to the backside of the acorn. I cut the text out with an x-acto knife, then used an acid-free glue to adhere the acorn together. I used pencil to write the text onto the leaf, then traced over it with the brown felt pen. Being sure to let it dry first, I then erased the original pencil with a super duper white eraser. Good as new! Once that was completed, I positioned the oak leaf onto the tan cardstock and glued it down with a glue pen, being careful to leave appropriate space for the paperclip to secure to the top of the leaf. Once the gluing was done, I fastened the acorn to the leaf with the paper clip, and secured the bottom and mid-parts of the acorn to the leaf with double-sided acid-free scrapbooking tape to prevent the acorn from shifting during mailing.



Voila! I always feel a homemade card is a bit more heartfelt than a store bought one. What do you think? Do you save cards you receive? Are you more likely to keep a homemade card than a store bought one?