Stacy sent me a big envelope of stuff, including three items that caught my eye:

• Brightly colored foil teabag wrappers. I’ve played with paper teabag wrappers in the past, and much as I’d like to turn them into little pockets, they’re often not strong enough. These foil ones seemed a little more substantial.
• Change wrappers. I thought some of these might make interesting background papers when combined with plain brown craft paper.
• Coin holders. I like anything round, and anything clear. These offered a little round plastic window just asking to have something tucked behind it.

I’m not big on card making, but these items seemed to be ideal for working on a smaller scale. Often I find it difficult to scale down my normally large work to create a decent card, so starting with smaller pieces that interested me was a big help.

For the first two cards, I used white cardstock for the base. I simply cut a sheet in half, and then folded the two pieces in half to create the basic card.

For the raspberry card, I covered the front face of the white card with some rose printed tissue, and trimmed around the edges. Instant matching background!

To create a little pocket from the teabag wrapper, all I had to do was tear the front of the wrapper down a little bit. Pockets always seem to work better when the front is just a little lower than the back. It makes whatever tucks into them slide a little easier.

I grabbed some paint sample chips, which seemed to coordinate well with the bright colors of the wrappers, and cut a tag from one. Rather than cutting on the straight, I made my first cut diagonally.

I glued the pocket down to the front of the card at an angle. I did this with the tag tucked inside the pocket for better positioning. Don’t glue down the pocket, then tuck the tag inside—it will generally not result in ideal placement.

A little ribbon and stamping on the tag, and this card was complete.

For the chamomile card, I used a large yellow paint chip as the front face of the card. I cut it on an angle, then erased the remaining printing. This technique is also discussed in the article I mentioned above.

One of the coin holders turned into a tag tucked into the teabag wrapper pocket. I glued two dried daisies to a piece of clear acetate, then glued the coin holder over it. This way, the background of the card could show through the window, behind the daisies. I stamped over the front of the holder with a little dye ink. DO NOT use a heat gun to dry these—the little window is plastic, and melts very easily.

I tucked the window tag into the pocket, glued it to the card front, and glued the whole thing to the white cardstock card base.

The orange card was made from a brown paper bag folded in half. I glued a paint chip to one side of the front. The tag tucked into the pocket is a manilla tag, trimmed down and covered with one of the change wrappers, then mounted on some solid cardstock to create an orange border around the outer edge.

Here are my finished cards: