Monday, April 6, 2009

Sometimes, you gotta make lemonade...

Bills.I hate em.

I hate all the trash they generate even more than I hate sending my money away.

So I fixed it. with the help of Lisa Vollrath.

See what you think.

First.... Steaming letters open is for housewives of the 50's. Take one of the envelopes from your bills and use your heat gun to release the glue. Be sure and remove the plastic window first though. Don't ask me how I know things. I just do. :)


All opened up, nice. Use the open version to trace onto cardstock and use as a permanent bookmark template. After tracing, reseal.

Next, measure 3" from the corner on each side for your cut marks.
Use a ruler to draw a line and cut.

Now you have your bookmark, and you just need to decorate it!

For the first one, I took the Amex envy and painted it with Golden's Micaceous Iron Oxide which is a gorgeous grey with sparkles. I'm sure there's a technical term for it. I don't know it.
Paint it over the envelope. I liked the stripe on this one because it showed through and became part of the design.
On top of this, I painted Tempting Turquoise Craft Ink.
Then I attached an old postage stamp - orange for a pop of color. I used Golden Gel medium to attach it, and to paint over the whole thing to make it a little more durable. It's just clean and clear and glossy like Mod Podge.

Here's the book I'm readingAnd here it is with the new sassy bookmark.I love having the template.
I made this one out of Basic Grey's Marrakech paper. I love this.I covered this with more gel mediumNothing better than turning a credit card bill into something that holds my place in a book called play!!

2 comments:

Jean Franks Beck said...

Great idea to make a template like that... when I first saw the bookmark on Understand Blue, I was wondering what kind of complicated origami I might have to do - but yes, I can certainly do this! Love how pretty and funky these are... what a great little gifty to tuck into a card. TFS, Lydia!

mel m. m. mccarthy said...

Fantastic. What a gorgeous way to recycle (oops I mean reanimate!) =;O-) Lovely!