Get Well with "gum wrapper chain"

Sabrina, this week's hostess of this week's SCS Ways to Use It challenge, is a woman after my own heart. How did she know that I can hardly ever get myself to toss even a scrap of card stock or designer paper? The result is bins of scraps, including lots of thin strips of designer paper that I'm sure I will be able to use on a card some day. LOL! I guess some day was today, at least for a couple of those strips.

Yup, you guessed it. The challenge today was to use strips on a card. Sabrina was awesome in pointing us to a bunch of different techniques that utilize strips, but I wanted to try something different. Now, I know what you're thinking. This card doesn't look like I used any strips on it. But indeed I have, even if the final result kind of transforms the strips into an embellishment that more resembles a checkerboard or a chevron.

Did you ever make gum wrapper chains as a kid? I didn't, but my hubby did, so I'm familiar with the concept. I thought it might be something that could translate into a cool embellishment for a card and guess what? It did!

To make the embellishment I cut thin strips of Notations double sided designer paper (from 10 years ago - I kid you not! Did I mention I was a hoarder?) into shorter strips and kind of wove them together, alternating the design. The picture shows what the weave looked like before I used snail to adhere everything together. Now, I know technically this isn't how gum wrapper chains were made, but the look is the same and I didn't need to waste any more of my precious designer paper strips than necessary to achieve it. Ha!

Not only did the resulting embellishment look cool, it was also substantial - almost the thickness of chipboard. Hopefully you can see that in the side photo of the card. Because it was so pretty and so weighty, I thought it would be best showcased on a clean and simple card. And when I say clean and simple, I mean really minimalist, at least for this card. I merely used the marker to stamp technique to stamp the get well image from the Tag It set in chocolate chip and certainly celery. I then cut it out using one of the framelits from the Chalk Talk assortment. For the mat I used sahara sand card stock and another framelit from the same assortment which I then dry embossed it with the Chevron embossing folder to echo the chevron shape of the "gum wrapper chain" embellishment.

To finish the card I merely adhered the sentiment to the mat using dimensionals and then attached the mat to the card base. I attached my "gum wrapper chain" embellishment below using snail. I think it all works well together and makes for a card that can be used for anyone, regardless of age or gender.

Recipe (all products Stampin' Up!)

Paper: whisper white, sahara sand, Notations DSP
Ink: chocolate chip and certainly celery markers
Stamps: Tag It
Accessories: Chalk Talk Framelits Assortment, Chevron Embossing Folder