By: Cathy Peper, Artistic Guide

My parents recently celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary.  I made them this home décor gift using the 7 Gypsies ATC tray.  There are many examples of this on line.  Just do a search.  Paper Wishes has a weekly webisode covering these trays and that is one of the sources I used for inspiration.  There are 12 spaces on the ATC tray (the trays come in different sizes).  I chose to use seven photos and five decorative elements.  Five of my photos are from each decade of their marriage:  their wedding in the 1960’s, an Easter photo in the 70’s, photos taken in the 80’s and 90’s and lastly a photo taken this decade when we went on vacation with them to Dollywood.  The other two photos consist of one of their three children and one of their four grandchildren.

Supplies:
Stamps:
Numbers (7 Gypsies)
“Home is Where the Heart Is” (Flourishes)
“Love” (Stubby Stampers)
House (Viva Las Vegastamps)
Hearts (Fancy Pants)
“Children” and “Grand” (Impression Obsession)
Paper:
Solar White cardstock (Neenah)
Sparkle White Cardstock (Stardreams)
Patterned Paper “Euphoria” (Basic Grey)
Ink:
Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko)
Other:
ATC Tray (7 Gypsies)
Dazzles, Heart shapes (Hot off the Press)
Colored pencils (Prismacolor)
Grungeboard Heart (Advantus-Tim Holtz)
Embossing Ink (Ranger)
Embossing Powder:  Wine and China Red (PK Glitz)
Embossing Glitter: Wine (PK Glitz)
Flowers (Prima)
Lace Trim (Purchased from Hobby Lobby)
Colorwash Sprays:  Fire and Air (Stamp Zia)
Punchinella (Gauche Alchemy)
Dimensional Stickers (K and Company)
Gemstones (The Paper Studio)
Sparkler Decorative Button (Webster’s Pages)
Die Cutting Machine
Dies:
Swirl (Creatables)
Ducks, part of Easter border petites (Spellbinders)
Zots (Therm o Web)
Repositional Adhesive (Hermia) 

Directions:

1. To begin, I cut squares of white cardstock to use as a background.  The spaces in the tray are not exactly ATC sized.  Paper Wishes recommends cutting the paper 3.75 inches by 2.75 inches and trimming as needed.  This is what I did.
2. For the 50^th anniversary card, I used white sparkle paper, decorated it with heart stickers and Stamped “50” at the top.  Then I backed it with patterned paper.



3. For the Love card, I covered my base with patterned paper, stamped “love” with embossing ink and embossed with wine embossing powder.  The solid heart was stamped and embossed in china red embossing powder while the open heart was stamped and embossed with wine glitter embossing powder.  The grungeboard heart was coated with embossing ink and embossed with china red embossing powder.



4. For the Flower card, I covered the base with patterned paper and adhered Prima flowers to the top left hand corner.  Then I adhered lace trim to the bottom and die cut a swirl to put in the lower right hand corner.



5. For the Family card, I sprayed the white cardstock with Fire colorwash spray, then using the punchinella as a stencil, sprayed again with Air spray.  After this dried, I tore a piece of patterned paper and covered the base of the card.  Then I decorated the card with a dimensional sticker that said “family” and a row of rhinestones at the top and bottom.



6. For the Home card, I covered the base with patterned paper and stamped “Home is where the Heart is” at the top.  Then I stamped the house on a scrap of white cardstock, colored it with colored pencils, cut it out and adhered to the bottom right hand side of the card.



7. For my photo cards, I made color copies of the photos, trimmed them to fit, matted them on patterned paper and embellished with stickers, rhinestones, buttons, die cuts and stamps.  Some needed no further embellishment.  For the card of me and my brothers, I stamped the word “children” beneath the photo.  I didn’t have a stamp that said grandchildren, so I used the same “children” stamp along with part of a “grandpa” stamp.
8. I think this is a gift that my parents will love.