Thank You

Once again, a cold Sunday in late April finds me in my craft cave. Earlier this month I posted about making mono prints.  Here, now, is the little project I was working on that made me do that.  I found myself thinking about those little Russian stacking dolls one day not too long ago.  You know the ones, where you open a doll to find another smaller one, which you open to find another smaller one etc.  This Thank You note is just like that, only it's paper!  There will be 45 of them when I get them all done.  Each will be unique in terms of its colors.  I'm thinking of sending them out as New Year's card next year, but I'm not really sure yet.  

Here is the front - with the pretty mono print up front.  Follow the little arrow's direction and flip it over...

Here is the back of it, again, follow the little arrow's direction and pull out the next tag....

Here you see the backside of the first tag, and the front of the second, another pretty mono print.  Flip the second tag over...

...to find another pocket with another tag in it, pull the third tag out....

... Tag #3 is yet another mono print, flip the third tag over for the finale...

Below is the back of all three tags.  The backs are all mass market printed paper pulled from my scrap stash. The End, with the little bunny butt is one of my favorites.  It was produced in the mid-eighties by All Night Media Co. 

Below are the fronts of all three tags.  The fronts are all mono prints I made.  They all have some kind of shine to them, as I used a lot of the Pebeo paint when making them.  The pictures never seem to do them justice, IMHO.  You can be the judge if you get one in the mail someday.  

It all started with the Russian dolls and this challenge I have going on in my head, have had it for years, about using up all this stuff I have accumulated before I die.  Now, don't get all freaked out, because I'm not dying of anything I know of other than old age, so far, knock on wood and all that, but I do think about what the heck is going to happen to all this stuff in my craft cave after I am gone.  If I use it up, and figure out how to stop accumulating more, (a big "if " there) it will be easier for those left behind when I'm gone.  With that in mind, I looked around at all the little hidey holes I have full of scraps of paper.  There are a lot of them.  Every project creates more scraps and if they are bigger than 3 inches, I save them for something else.  I decided to make a dent in them.  This little "Thank You" project is made completely of scraps I have accumulated over the years.  If you read the post about mono printing, you'll know that even that was done with scraps.  

One thing about using up scraps is it's a lot of repetition at the die cutting station.  Scraps are too small to use the Cricut cutting machine to cut 45 of this shape or that shape.  To do that easily with the Cricut, you have to use full sheets of paper, which was not my goal.  I had literally hundreds of 3" x 12" scraps of black paper.  This project used them all up!  But that meant rolling a lot of paper through my Sizzix Big Shot Express, over and over until I had enough of each shape to make 45 of these little thank you notes.  It was fun, actually.  It fed my OCD for quite a while.  And, the Express means the steel rollers operate at the push of a button, I don't have to crank a handle like I did with my original Big Shot, which I wore out a few years back.  All in all, I accomplished my goals.  The scrap piles are GREATLY reduced, for now anyway, I have a fun thank you card to send out, and my OCD is at ease, again, for now anyway.

A thing that just occurred to me as I was previewing this post before publishing...what if I never use up all this stuff?  What if all this stuff is the key to living forever?  If I never use it up, I never die.  Hmmm...spending eternity crafting things out of paper.  I'm good with that.  :o)