Happy Earth Day

Okay. Here is that project I hinted at earlier in the week. We are going to re-purpose old gift cards.

It was super easy and took about an hour to make several. Here's how we, Emma and I, did it. (The idea came from the Michael's website).

1. Gather some old (zero balance) gift cards.
2. Pick out some pretty papers to cover both sides of the card.
3. Apply a layer of gel medium or Mod Podge to one side of the card. Place a piece of paper over the wet gel medium and smooth out any air bubbles. Add a layer of gel medium on top of the paper.

4. Allow the surface to dry to the touch (no longer tacky). We used a heat gun to speed up the process.

5. Trim off the excess paper using scissors.
6. Flip over and repeat the process. Note: Don't worry if the edges of the paper are not adhering well. We will be adding another layer of gel medium at the end.
7. Paint both sides of the card.

When dry, decorate the card. We used extra paint colors, various stamps, some decorative tape, and markers to add words (both gel markers and sharpies).
8. Punch a hole in the top. We used the Crop-a-dile tool, but a hole punch would work too.

9. Apply a last layer of gel medium over both sides of the card, and on the edges also, to really seal that paper to the card.
10. Add a pretty ribbon.

These are the front and back of the 2 that I made:

   

And this is the one that Emma made:

Now you just need to decide what to do with your art. I'm going to use mine as gift tags for presents. Maybe in December I can make some for Christmas presents. I was also thinking about attaching several with a jump ring to make a mini-book.

Turned out to be a cute idea, and it cost no money if you used supplies you have on hand. And we even helped to celebrate Earth Day by re-purposing something that would have been thrown away!

Happy Earth Day!