Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Onion skin card

 
Here's a blast from the past! I made a card similar to this one on The Carol Duvall Show almost 10 years ago. All you need to do is save the outer skins of onions for a while. You can make really interesting textured backgrounds for your cards. Here's how to do it:

Materials:
Dry Onion Skins (brown or purple)
Chipboard (I used a piece measuring 5 1/2" x 4 1/4")
Spray glue or white glue
Small house painting brush
Decoupage medium (Mod Poge or similar)
Paper cutter

Steps:
Spray glue the piece of chipboard or the inside of a cut up cereal box.
If you don't have spray glue, brush on a thin layer of white glue.
Start pressing pieces of dry onion skins into the glue until
the whole piece of chipboard is covered.
Don't worry if some of the onion skins look loose.
Turn the piece upside down and press firmly to help adhere the skins to the glue.
Brush on the decoupage medium making sure you cover any onion pieces sticking up.
Keep brushing on the medium until all the skins and flat.
Brush off any excess medium, a thin even layer dried more uniformly.
If you wish you may add a second coating after the first coat is dry.
This will give your piece more depth and richness.
After the piece has dried completely, trim away any onion skins overlapping
the edges of the chipboard.
Your piece is now ready to be trimmed to whatever size you need for a card background.
Remember to save all the leftovers for other cards.
Enjoy!
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5 comments:

Unknown said...

Looks like fun and I just bought some onions for the weekend.....will have to see what I can do with this.

thanks

Jill Smith said...

Timing is everything. I am helping my neice make family recipe cookbooks for Christmas gifts. I was looking for just the right idea for the cookbook covers. How perfect are onion-skin covers??? Marvelous! Thanks for sharing, Mike.

1922 Designs by bev allaire said...

I've been wanting to try this technique for a long time; thanks for giving us the details.

Monica-FC said...

wow, how cool making a card from the skins. wow. love it.

Margot said...

10 years ago! I am hoping that when I saw it (and tried it), it was a re-run because surely I am not that old! I like MSRS a lot ... but I REALLY enjoy your use of found and recycled materials.