Altered: Box & Cards Gift

My dear friend, Beth, and I meet every year for a *Christmas* breakfast or lunch. This has become quite the joke, because we never meet at Christmas anymore. It is usually January or February, sometimes May or even June, before we manage to get together. But we meet nonetheless, and that's what's important!

This year, I wanted to make her a gift of cards and a holder she could reuse in some way when the cards are gone. I was looking around for something just the right size when I found this Starbucks box.

It originally held a coffee and chocolate sampler that I received as a gift from my friend and office mate, Young Susan. (I gave us the titles of Young Susan and Old Susan for obvious reasons.)

I decorated it with the gorgeous Addison DP by K & Company and the beautiful blue Raindots I received from Judy. I was going to add an oval Nestie layered panel that said "Cards", but I thought she might find a different use for the box. It looks so pretty with the Raindots IRL but the lighting was lousy when I took these!

I made two each of the 5.5x5.5 cards below for Beth. I used simple cream satin ribbon, more of the pretty Raindots, and my Nesties to embellish them. The sentiments are from SU Happy Harmony, which was a gift from a wonderful gal, Deb, who sent me a box overflowing with card kits to play with when I was off following my hysterectomy.

All of the fabulous layouts came from SCS card sketches -- such a great place for inspiration and to get your card mojo moving!

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Lots of little layered "tiles" on a faux-seersucker Soft Sky panel. It was a little time consuming cutting all the layers for the squares, but I really like the end result!

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I used the Textile Texture embossing folder in my 'Bug to give the Old Olive strips some, uh, texture!

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I added Raindrops to the centers of the flowers, but really wish I would have stamped an image in Versamark or added some Raindrops to the bottom left of the River Rock panel.

All in all, I'm pleased with the way these turned out, and she appeared to like it too! I hope she'll send the cards on to someone who will enjoy them, and that she can find a practical use for the box as well!