All Tied Up!

When I saw this new little Kindred Spirit Dad from Gina K, I was thinking how fun it would be to paper piece his shirt and make a matching shirt and tie to go with it! I'd seen these little origami shirt and ties before but had never tried to make them(well, I made my own version of a tux and collar eons ago, but not the same) Well, check out this great video tutorial from Susannah Boyd! SO simple! So I was able to whip up this matching ensemble in just a couple minutes! (both papers are from the DCVW Spring mat stack), so excited to know how to do this now :) I won't even bother retelling the directions, just grab your paper and go watch! (when you're done reading about my card!)

I was trying to decide whether I wanted to make this for my dad or my kids' dad (DH) because this would change how I colored the people. It was then I noticed the "girl" could be the mom and son or the sister looking on with the brother! (This may have been obvious to everyone but me, but since I had only used it before to make the wallet insert for my father, I'd been thinking of the "girl and boy" as my brother and I growing up, it was just stuck in my head that way.) Once I figured that out, I decided to color them to look like my oldest son and I with my husband(we never give him ties, though*) and kept all the colors within the same palette as the DP's. I pieced the shirt from my scrap and colored the tie to look like the origami, I just love how he's not wearing a tie with the shirt in the image and then it looks like you're seeing the folded ensemble together with the pic of him receiving it earlier, fun and matchy match! :)

I considered putting the family snapshot inside the card so I wouldn't cover up the cute folding, but really wanted it to be on the outside. I also considered having the snapshot hanging off the edge but didn't want to mess with having to make a custom envelope to fit it**! Then I thought about making a huge card out of one folded sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 since I have big envelopes, but I just wasn't liking how much space that left around my shirt and image, even when adding other layers and such. Finally, I decided to just overlap the tie a bit with my stamped image, popped up on dimensionals. That looked pretty good, but it need something else in the corner, besides just the greeting. I decided to make a little sleeve folded over from the extra piece I had from cutting my shirt, and folded up the cuff. (I like how the white edge there echoes the collar and points toward "Dad"). I attached it with dimensionals. Inside I stamped "Thanks for always taking care of us! Happy Father's Day!", also from the Kindred Greetings for Him.

BTW, Susannah gave me a shout out for my Kindred wallet tutorial over at her most excellent blog! Check it out along with some other fab tutorials! :)


* and if we did, he'd never wear this one. (He's got a bajillion plaid shirts, though, similar to this one, all in only slightly varying shades of blue and green...does that sound like your husband??)

** this finished card fits in an A2 envelope