Thanks a (mer)lot!

Today's card was made as a thank you that I gave to good neighbors who reward snowblowing their driveway out with delicious wine they make themselves in their winecellar...we always tell them that it's not necessary -but they insist! So this year, I insisted on giving them a "thank you" card for their "thank you" gift, lol. I used my interpretation of the inspiration photo @ Just Add Ink, added a bow for the Shopping Our Stash: "Tie One On" challenge and will apply it for the "Just For Fun" challenge on our new Mix It Up Technique Challenge Blog ( I am still over the moon excited about having been invited to be a "Mixed Up Girl" DT member here!!!)  using paper piecing and liquid glass techniques + using patterned paper for Craftyhazelnut's Challenge + "Anything Goes" @ PDF Linky Party.

For this card, I dug out a large wooden stamp called "Red Wine Cellar" from Stamps Happen Inc. that I bought somewhere many years ago, but find I hardly use because of it's size -it pretty much covers the front of an entire A2 sized card. I really love the way it looks on a card and on a shelf too, lol...it's so pretty with the colored label! The Old World paper fit the vintage vibe I was going for, so I reached for it again once more and chose a muted green this time. The card base is an ivory side fold trimmed just slightly bigger than an A2 so that I could layer for a small border.

I knew I wanted to paper piece and keep the colors on the muted side, so I stamped in grey instead of black ink and decided to color with watercolor pencils, a blender pen and Wink of Stella pens (gold and silver).

I stamped twice...once directly on the green patterned paper for the background and once on ivory cardstock. I also stamped the retired TAC "thanks for everything" in black directly on the background to the right of the wine glass.  Before I colored, I fussy cut the ivory wine bottle and glass in one large piece as you can see pictured below.

Popping the large focal piece up with foam dots gave a nice bit of dimension to the front of the card and set it apart from the background perfectly.

After adding a large ribbon bow to the left side spine of the card, I covered the green wine bottle with the Gold Wink of Stella glimmer pen, the grey foil wrapper with the Silver Wink of Stella and the Wine glass with the Crystal Lacquer to get the look of glassware. I just love the additional feeling of depth it accomplished. And my neighbor friend loved it so much that she texted me right after opening her mailbox that day to say "thanks" for the thank you's thank you...LOL!