The other day, I received a slew of Nikon items. My co-workers parents know that I love taking photographs, so when they wanted to get rid of their old film cameras, they gave them to me!
The stash included a camera from the 1970s...
Another from the mid-1990's...
A flash and an additional lens!
As you can imagine, I was beyond thrilled to receive all of these fun "toys!"
After such a wonderful treat, I wanted to make sure that I thanked my co-workers parents appropriately. I think a personalized thank-you note is the best way to convey appreciation when someone gives a thoughtful gift like this. So I put my thinking cap on, used just the materials I had in my craft stash, and created this accordion thank-you note.
I started with some of the most interesting/diverse black and white photos I've taken in the last 6 months. I thought a thank-you note referencing my love of photography would be appropriate in this situation, right?
Then I got to planning. I wanted to use a bunch of photos, but I also didn't want to spend a mint on printing specialty sizes. So I based my "design" on the idea that I'd crop (by hand) each of my 4x6 photos down to a 4x4 square. I also limited my plan to the 8.5x11" black card stock that I had in my stash... and in the end, here's what I came up with:
(I don't always plan out my projects on paper, but when I do I'm reminded how nice it is to not waste my materials on foolish ideas or mis-measured photos.)
And since this project needed to really say "thanks," I made little vellum letters for each photo in the accordion. Having worked at a scrapbook store in college, I'm pretty particular when it comes to using vellum, and I really don't like it when you can see the adhesive through the vellum (and I think even the special vellum adhesive is visible sometimes). So I thought I'd use folded pieces of vellum; that way, the folded piece of vellum could be adhered behind the photo without compromising the vellum. Of course I didn't have any sheets of vellum in my craft stash, so I just used a vellum envelope I had lying around. I used a 1" square craft punch and carefully punched my squares along the edge of the envelope to create little tents. Then I used a large calligraphy pen to spell the phrase "thank you" onto the vellum pieces.
Once the vellum had dried, I glued each piece to the back of the photos and adhered the photos to the black paper accordion I had created.
And in a few minutes, my card was practically finished!
I took the extra step of gluing a piece of ribbon on the back of the card (as a pretty closure)...
And added a special note of "thanks" scribbled over the last photo in the accordion.
I think this special card was the perfect way to thank my co-workers parents for my new (yet old) cameras! I especially think the accordion design would be fun for all sorts of projects, and I can't wait to try it again!
Thanks for stopping by- I hope you have a great day!
