Hi, I’m Valerie Mangan and I am so excited to be here guest blogging at Ella Publishing today. I’d like to take a minute to wish Ella a very happy birthday. I’ve had and ‘Ella-va’ time reading this blog over the last year, participating in challenges and learning more about our hobby from their fabulous, informative eBooks! Can’t wait to see what they have in store for us in the upcoming year!

I am a scrapbooker. I started back in ’03 and didn’t start making cards until about 2 years ago. Since then, I’ve come to embrace this little part of the papercrafting world. I love the flexibility it offers, the variety of materials & techniques I can use, the smaller scale of the projects, and the fact that the finished product is a little gift in itself. I thought I’d focus today on using found items for cardmaking, particularly, vintage items found at yard sales & flea markets. Let me confess right off the bat that I love ‘old stuff’ and I am thrilled that the vintage trend has taken hold of the paper craft hobby.

Before I ever began seriously papercrafting, you could find me on the weekends sifting through boxes at yard sales and flea markets, searching for vintage ephemera. Amassing a stash that has become extremely handy! Here are just a few of the items I’m looking for when I’m on the hunt: anything made of paper, including packaging from sewing notions, sheet music, photography-related ephemera….

…old school supplies, coupons…

…paperboard boxes from vintage holiday items, recipe cards, old greeting cards, …

kitchenware packaging (especially anything birthday related), give-away cookbooks…

oh, and buttons, don’t forget the buttons…

So you amass your giant pile of old paper, etc. – now what? Here are a few projects I’ve put together with items from my stash. (Let me mention here that one of the great things about all this – you don’t have to work in a particular style to use vintage material. It works with all styles.)

Button Packaging Cards
For these 2 cards I used the packaging that held the old buttons, direction side up, as the base ‘pattern.’ Then I layered the rest of the elements on top of them.

These are a score if you can find them because they combine not one, but 2 hot trends: sewing & vintage. Then, you can use the buttons for other stuff.

Here’s the same basic concept, this time with an old advertising postcard:

Photo Sleeve Card w/Vintage Photo Envelope

It’s a special thrill for me when I stumble onto photography-related ephemera. I found these 2 photo envelopes at an estate sale and they cost .25. I have used them on cards and layouts. I wish I had a few more. Using these I made a card that holds photos.

For this project, I simply cut the photo sleeve and a piece of photo-related coordinating paper into strips to match the stripe size on the blue patterned paper. I sewed it all together then added some stickers & the camera die cut.

Christmas Tags
Christmas and the holidays? I was lucky enough to stumble onto this old (‘not so old its precious’) book of odd Christmas stories. I picked it up to use the type pages but discovered while working on the tags below, that it has some pretty cool illustrations in it, as well.

For this project, I also used Christmas carol song books. I combined these two items, along with some paint and matte multi medium…and...

To make these tags

• apply the sheet music to the tags with the matte multi medium. (Mod Podge could also work.)
• fussy cut some of the illustrations from the book,
• add  to the tag with the multi medium, and then
• painted them in with watercolor

I finished them off with some little dots of paint, some K & Co. holiday stickers, a length of washi tape at the bottom edge and a little string and ribbon.

Here’s another variation, using the type from the book. For this one I traced a flower shape onto the pages, cut them out and attached them to the tag with the multi medium. I highlighted the shapes with red paint, added a little glitter glue, tissue tape and stickers.

Last but not least, a birthday card made with a vintage cake decoration.

I trimmed off the prongs that would have stuck into the circa. 1960 cake and had an instant, cool, one-of-a-kind card embellishment.

Check out those paper piles at the next gargage, thrift, or estate sale you go to and start to collect your own goodies.

and Remember

1) You can add a truly unique and one-of-a-kind quality to all your projects.

2) Experiencing the ‘thrill of the hunt’ when you stumble onto that perfect piece of old ‘stuff’ that you know will complete a project you are working on.

3) It’s extremely affordable. I’ve picked up armloads of stuff at yard & estate sales for under a dollar!

4) It’s good to recycle!
 

Supplies

Button Packaging Cards: Patterned paper: Cosmo Cricket; flowers: Basic Grey, American Crafts, K & C.; stickers: Cosmo Cricket; stamp: Stampin Up; pin: Tim Holtz; misc: buttons, sewing Thumbs Up/Good Luck: Patterned paper: Basic Grey, 7 Gypsies, Studio Calico; frame: K & Co; stamp/ink: Close To My Heart; string: Martha Stewart; misc: buttons, sewing

Photo Sleeve Card: Cardstock: Core’dinations; Patterned paper: Studio Calico, Basic Grey; stickers: October Afternoon, Studio Calico; die cut: Girls Paperie; rub on: 7 Gypsies; stamp & tag: Stampin Up; string: Martha Stewart

Christmas Tags: Stickers: K & Co.; Letter stickers: Cosmo Cricket; Tissue tape: Tim Holtz; String: Martha Stewart: ribbon: May Arts; glitter glue: Ranger; Paint: Claudine Hellmuth; gel medium: Liquitex

Birthday Card: Cardstock: Close To My Heart; Patterned paper: MME; Die cuts: Sassafras Lass; String: Martha Stewart