Meaningful Christmas Present

I teach at a pretty large high school and have a great group of about six teachers that I hang out with regularly. Last year for Christmas we each picked a name out of a hat and bought a $20 present for that person. This year with money being tight for everyone we decided to do something different. My friend Karen got this idea from Oprah and I just had so much fun doing it and also felt like I was making meaningful presents for my friends! This is what we did...it is so simple!

Karen put six colorful index cards (the large ones) into each of our mailboxes at school. We were to write meaningful letters to each of our friends and decorate the cards (if we wanted to!) and then return them to Karen on a specific day. We were then to bring in a box and Karen would deliver our letters to us...kind of Valentine's Dayish also!

Well I have been working on mine and I just finished tonight! Here is what I did:

First I painted each of the cards with acrylic paint:





Then using some paper that I had previously hand-painted, I cut out flower shapes and glued them on using matte medium and a paint brush. I then went over the flowers with some more acrylic paint and added decorative details in the background. Next I layered the collage with gloss medium to make it shine! Here are some of my final products! I wrote the letter to each friend on the back of the collage-so fun:)











I am so excited to give them to my friends on Friday! That is our last day of school and then we get Winter Break! Yay:)

Have a great evening!