Reuse, Re-purpose and Recycle Blog Hop Challenge

Tonight is the big Blog Hop hosted by Papertrey Ink!  This month’s challenge was as follows:

“With the holidays now wrapping up, many of you probably have oodles of holiday cards and wrapping paper surrounding you, waiting to be sorted, stored or thrown away.  ‘Tis the season to recycle! Your challenge this month is to re-purpose leftover holiday trimmings such as Christmas cards or gift wrap and create something all-new!  Not only will this be fun, but also budget & earth friendly at the same time! For an extra challenge, think outside the box and adapt these items to create a non-holiday project!  Use gift wrap in place of patterned paper or images from holiday card fronts as focal points.  The heavy stock used for cards can be re-purposed to make small gift boxes or sturdy punched tags.  Gift wrap is generally thin enough that it could be cut into strips and used as impromptu ribbon.  The possibilities are endless!  We look forward to seeing your results!”

Now, doesn’t that sound intriguing?!?!?  I opted to go for some silver metallic leftovers that I saved from a gift I opened yesterday.  As soon as I saw them, I thought they would look fabulous paired with Aqua Mist!

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As I played around with these bits and pieces I finally ended up opting to just use a bit of the wrapping paper on my project.  I found the best way to work with it was to securely adhere it to a piece of cardstock, trim it down to my desired size and then use a sanding block lightly around the edges.  It gave the thin paper some great stability and made the entire piece look more like a panel.  I ended up pulling out one of my old favorites, Sweet Love, to create the background for my card.  Our new Fresh Snow ink showed up quite well on the Aqua Mist cardstock, creating a nice backdrop for my embellished silver panel.
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I thought the colors lent themselves beautifully to a wedding card.  The rhinestone buckles were a find from a recent trip to Hobby Lobby.  Our Aqua Mist grosgrain ribbon was a perfect fit with the buckles and really added to the elegance of the project.  I heat embossed the sentiment with Silver Filigree powder which captured every detail of the image and provided a really polished look.  Upon completion, I decided the card needed just a little more bling, so I adhered just a few small rhinestones onto the ribbon to help accent the buckle and bring more attention to it as a focal point.
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If you would like to check out the other participants, you can view the Blog Hop Participant List HERE.

Even if you didn’t complete a project in time for the hop, I would love to see how you step up to the challenge!  Please feel free to link to your recycled project in the comments section so we can all gain inspiration from each other!

Have fun & happy stamping!