everything but the Kitchen Sink challenge

I had SOOOO much fun making this card for the new "everything but the Kitchen Sink challenge"!!!!! This is a new challenge started by a few friends of mine, so I knew I was going to participate from the moment that I read their news! I was just waiting on the recipient to get her card first before posting it - because I know that she reads my blog and I didn't want to spoil the surprise! Click on the picture below and it will take you to Courtney's blog and the other entries for this challenge:For this month the challenge was to take something from your mail and incorporate it into a card or scrapbook page. Here is some of the mail that I used:

The card I made was for my sister, Carol, who uses coupons like a mad woman and can get stuff for next to nothing most of the time! I had some coupons that I wanted to send her for diapers, but I also had some coupons for other stuff that I knew I would not be using, so I sent those along as well.

The first thing I saw after I read about the challenge on Courtney's blog was a coupon book from Kroger and I immediately thought about a coupon themed card but I wasn't sure how it was going to work out completely.

Then I got the cellophane pocket idea from another one of the challenge creators, Winter. I decided that I would find small images of of some of the products I was sending in coupon form and tuck them into the little pocket. I took those images, glued them to some card stock and cut them out again and stuck them in their cellophane pocket home.

I cut the "exclusive coupons" wording from the front of the Kroger coupon booklet and put it all on top of some striped paper from Cherry Hill's October Afternoon collection. I then found a scrap of blue paper and punched a scalloped border for the edge of the card. This card was really tiny - it was only about 4X3 inches.

It seemed like it was missing something so....The last thing that I did was I stamped a "To you from me" sentiment from American Craft's. I cut that out, punched a hole in it, and tied some ribbon in it and stuck it in the little cellophane pocket as well.

Here is the finished product with the coupons inserted and ready to go!

My sister called me today to let me know that she got the card and that she thought it was really cute! I must admit that it reminded me of doing a project like you would do in elementary school, but I absolutely LOVED it - it was almost therapeutic after a long 12 hour day of work! I sat down JUST to come up with the idea and I ended up staying up until almost 1AM working on the darn thing AND I had to get up for work the next morning (thank goodness the next day was a Saturday and I didn't have to be there until 9 instead of our normal 8)!

Even though it does remind me of something I would have made in elementary school, it is still probably one of my favorite cards that I have made so far! I hated parting with it, but I am glad it brought a smile to someone else's face today!