Travel Turtle

I’m staying with a friend while up in Brooklyn, and I wanted to give her a thank you card. I, however, have no time to buy one, so I decided to make one up really quick using things I have around the house. Then I decided to make a tutorial. So here we go.

First, the cast of characters:

• An image: from an old magazine, a new magazine, a picture, a catalog, a book, whatever. I used the table of contents from a June/July Issue of Bust Magazine.
• Something that makes item #1 attach to paper: A stapler, glue, rubber cement, paper clip. I used a glue stick.
• A fabric of some sort: Jeans, towels, the underside of your couch cushion. I used scrap felt. It helps if it’s non-fraying if you prefer non-fraying material.
• Something that cuts image and fabric: A knife, your teeth. I used two pairs of scissors.
• The card itself. You can use cardstock and fold it, I used pre-made card cardstock with matching envelopes. I recommend buying a bunch of these and just keeping them on hand. I’ve had mine for like 3 or 4 years and the white is still white. So, you don’t have to worry about discoloring.

Then, cut out your image

Mine was a little large, so I had to crop it to size. Then I turned it over and used the glue stick to attach it to the card. For some reason the picture came out really dark. As if hours transpired between the picture above and this onel. But, no… it was only maybe a minute later.

Then decide how you want to approach the felt situation. I originally thought I was going to use red and pink, but there was so much pink in the picture, I decided to just go with the red.

Then I did something weird. I decided not to take a picture of the next couple of steps. So, let me explain. Cut the felt the same size as the folded card. Then take that piece of felt and fold it in half. Cut out the middle in a shape of your choice. Unfold the felt, and attach it to your card. It will be a frame, and it’ll look like this:

Then trim the edges so that it’s exactly (roughly) the same size as the card and you get:

Tada! I’m going to pack this card in my purse and think of something nice to say inside the card once I’m on a plane. I don’t know how I’ll incorporate the “X” over the mouth into a “thank you for letting me sleep on your couch” card, but I’ll figure it out. Maybe, words can not express how thankful I am for having a place to sleep this weekend. Is that a bit much?

Anyway, enjoy. When I get back to my home and my laptop I will make more variations of this technique so you can see just how versatile this really is!