Procrastination

I am SUPPOSED to be doing a ton of things to get ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Am I doing any of them? No. Am I checking out stamping blogs instead? Yes. Sigh. I thought I might as well upload a card to ease some of my guilt.

Today's card is an iris folded ornament with bow. I chose a rather nontraditional color palette (purple), but I thought the finished card turned out well. I copied the ornament pattern onto cardstock (a copy machine works well for this). I then used an exacto knife to cut out the ornament pattern. I flipped the card over and stamped a Hero Arts Christmas saying in purple ink. Unfortunately, I think the stamp has since been discontinued. It was important to do the stamping BEFORE I did the iris folding because once you add the folded papers, the card is too bulky to stamp. I also added a piece of gold paper to the top of the ornament and edged the top loop with a gold Krylon pen before doing the actual iris folding. I followed the iris folding pattern and added different patterns of purple paper till the ornament was complete. I have several bits of advice when picking papers for iris folding.

• Think thin. Thick papers make your card too bulky
• Add a variety of textures. I often mix up papers such as mulberry papers, vellums, and smooth scrapbook papers
• Use scraps, but make sure you have enough. Iris folding is a great way to use up some of your small scraps. However, make sure you have enough of each color before you start. I found out the hard way how hard it is to finish a card if you run out of a certain paper. You can never make it look right...trust me!
• Having trouble picking colors that work well together? Go monochromatic. I picked all purple papers, so I knew they would go with each other.

I finished the card with some gold Krylon pen and a purple bow. I wrote these instructions as if everyone was familiar with iris folding. If you have never done any iris folding, there are a lot of great books out there as well as a wonderful tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday! Wish me luck that there won't be TOO much traffic for my drive.