From Card to Tree

I am on a roll here. Thanks to Lauren and Steph at Jingle Belles where the current challenge is to use a recycled element on a card. I have been playing with recycled elements off and on all week and this morning's card is no exception. However, this card takes recycling to another level because the ornament that I created is removal so the recipient can hang it on a tree. To make the ornament, I downloaded an image of Santa from the internet and enlarged it in MS Word and printed it. The ornament itself is made from a DIY shrink plastic.  If you read my previous post (here), I used a panel from a  #6 bakery plastic container and shrunk it to make snowflakes.  However, in the previous post, I didn't add color. For the Santa ornament, I placed the image of Santa beneath a piece of  #6 plastic, taped it in place with masking tape and used acrylic paints to add detail. (You can use markers to color the image, but I get more vibrant color with paint, probably because I don't have the right brand of marker for the plastic surface.) After the paint dried, I used a heat gun and shrunk it. I adhered an ornament hanger to the back with a hot glue gun and attached it to the embossed white background (I poked a hole in the cardstock with a needle.) I added pine branches and mounted it on a white cardbase with dimensional adhesive.

I have to be honest, after I was done painting it, I wasn't sure I wanted to shrink it, because I loved the vibrant colors. But, I did and I'm happy with the results. The white paint (which is really White Out because I had a limited supply of white paint) sort of flecked off and created "falling" snow over the image.

A close up look at the ornament.

This is what the image looked like after I was done painting it with acrylic paint. 

 Supplies: # 6 Bakery plastic container, Cardbase/Cardstock: Recollections, Image: Deposit Photos, Acrylic Paint: Master's Touch, Heat Gun: Marvy Uchida , Embossing Folder: Darice, Pine Bough Punch: Martha Stewart, Bic White Out, Dimensional Adhesive: Scrapbook Adhesives 3D Foam Squares