A Different Napkin Technique

As I was playing with paper napkins, I checked out a few YouTube videos.  I came across one that showed using various glues and decided to try it. It showed using various glues on a craft mat - apply glue to mat, lay down napkin, apply glue on top, let dry, peel off mat.

(I've just spent an hour looking for the video I saw and I can't find it! If I find it, I'll add a link here.  )  In my looking, I came across this one by delygirl1961. It shows using much less glue than I did - would probably work better.  Another one by Kellie Colegrove showed that fabric stiffener might work even better.)  

At any rate, I hadn't seen those when I tried this technique, so I just used cheap school glue.  Here's what I found out:

   1) Cheap glue seems to work well BUT - you want the glue to be pretty thin - mine were WAY too thick & took FOREVER to dry!!!!

   2) The side closest to the craft sheet dries glossy, the top side dries to more of a matte finish.  I might have preferred putting my napkin face side down so the glossy side was the front side.

    3) Too much glue and it dries more opaque - not the translucent look I was going for (see 2nd card below.)

Anyway, here are the cards I made using this technique.  The first piece was somewhat translucent and I wanted to play up that look.  So, I cut a hole in the front of my card & covered it with the napkin.  I then glued a die cut from a Spellbinder's die on top.  The card front was finished with a "Color Me" tag from HOTP that I colored with Gelatos & heat embossed the "Thanks" in copper.

You really can't see from the picture, but in real life, you can somewhat see through the center part.  On the inside, I layered the pieces cut out of the center of the brown & the card base.

For my 2nd card, the napkin piece was not at all translucent.  So, I fussy cut around it & glued it to the front of my card.  The frame is cut with a couple of Spellbinders dies.  The "background" is really just a border pieced together from napkins and glued in place. The sentiment was stamped with a JustRite stamp.