Re-Carding?

I recently received a very pretty hand crafted wedding invitation. Designed with pretty pale blue glimmering paper and accented with glimmery black paper which had been embossed with a beautiful vine and bird embossing folder.

The papers were so pretty together I thought I really wanted to re-use them to make the wedding card I would give back to the bride and groom. However, I was at a bit of a loss as to whether it would be okay or if it would be tacky. Such a dilemma!

The invitation was clean & simple aka Classy. It was adorned with a single layered stamped medallion, which meant a fair amount of usable paper. Here is the original invitation both front and inside.

The embossed black strip & medallion are part of the back of the card and fold over the front from the back. That flap was three layers of heavy card stock and the black was nearly impossible to strip off. It certainly limited how I could use the piece.
The inside has a pocket for all the important little things you must include with invites... directions to the church, RSVP card, etc. That piece was also most firmly attached. Since I did have a bit of trouble separating them I had to alter from my original idea. Perhaps for the best.
My finished card. I used Twilight card stock from CTMH for the card base. A strip of the embossed black was attached to the lower edge. I cut two pieces of the shimmery pale blue and edge punched them. One was centered on the front over the black and the other was used inside the card to write my message on.

The flower was more difficult in trying to match the color. I used dream coat white paint and an old CTMH re-inker, Cloud Blue. I was hoping for more variation in depth of color but starting with such a light color it's hard to get very dark. After dabbing on paint and ink I sprayed it with shimmer mist, dried it with the heat tool and cut three different size flowers with my Cuttlebug. I scrunched the flowers up, un-scrunched them and added a thin coat of Liquid Glass. Although not exactly the result I was looking for I am pleased with it. It looks a little "rubbery" almost like I made it from Naugahyde.

I also tinted a large brad then clipped all the three flowers together with it. Layered with a black and thinner blue ribbon and three leaves cut from Twilight card stock and Ta-Da! my re-carded wedding card. Then, just before I was ready to put it in the envelope I added a bit of glitter to the brad. You can see that in the top photo.

I was still feeling a little unsure about 're-carding' but those fears went away at the reception. My family shared table with two couples, of which both the women are avid stampers and scrappers. I shared my secret with them and guess what.... they both made their wedding cards for the bride and groom from the invitations!! I hope I get a chance to see them!! By the way, the photo makes the flower look pinkish - it's not.