Tuesday, June 1, 2010

A Birthday Card Story.

I am really excited to post this next card. Lately, I've been saying this with every card, but this is seriously one of my all-time favorite cards. But please bare with me. I am going to selfishly walk you thru every detail of how this card was created so that I can relive the memories.

I worked on this card with a friend of mine. Working with my friend is always a pleasure, but typically we have an agenda. This time, it was fun to sort of play around with materials and toss around ideas with her. She's amazingly creative and talented. She inspires me everyday to live green and think outside of the box when crafting. She's definitely a crafter in a whole other league from me, since I stick to paper and fabric, so she brings a plethora of crafty information with her.

A few weeks ago, my friend and I set out on a mission to create a card for our fellow crafty friend. We are two of her biggest fans. Basically, it had to be fantastic. It needed to be fabulous. And it definitely required some amount of 'clever'. And I, of course, thought it had to have some sort of pennant banner. And at least one rosette. So, we started a think tank and dove head first into a brainstorming session where I presented my friend with ideas like, "Why don't we just encrust it with huge diamonds!!" And my friend would respond, "Um. No." Or, "Why don't we make a remote control card that will zoom in with a cake on top?!" And my friend would respond, "Um. No." So, the dreamer and the realist went thru my craft room and decided to use what I had. Unfortunately, there were no huge diamonds available for encrusting.

We stumbled upon this picture and used it as our inspiration. A desert table by Amy Atlas.


It fit all the criteria. It was fantastic. In fact, it was fabulous. It had some crepe paper rosettes that were to making me scream, "Come home to Momma!!!" And, layering those rosettes?! How clever! The only thing missing as far as I was concerned was a pennant banner. Totally doing this for a party, BTW. Preferably a party for me.

The next day I started sketching out ideas at work (instead of working, yes). At the suggestion of my friend, I included the sketches for you. Kind of shows you my thought process.
Then, it was back to my craft room. None of the patterned paper I had really satisfied us, so my friend came up with the very clever idea of using magazines or catalogs to make the rosettes. I recycle my catalogs pretty quickly, but luckily that morning I forgot to toss the latest Pottery Barn catalogs in my recycle bin before the city came to pick it up. It was fate.

I'll admit, once we started cutting them up, I was a bit skeptical of the catalogs. It didn't seem like it was colorful enough. But, I loved the idea that we were using catalogs. Despite my concerns, that night my friend confidently churned out every single one of those rosettes as well as the pennants AND still wanted to be my friend the next day.

I figured the enforcers of the crafting labor laws would not condone three nights of torture, so the next day, I decided I'd better figure out the rest of the card on my own. So after playing around with a few ideas, I ended up stitching each pennant into a banner by hand-feeding it into my sewing machine. It sounds extremely labor intensive, I know. I'll just keep typing and making you think that. But, in case any crafting labor law enforcers are reading this, it actually didn't take that long once I got the swing of it.

Besides gluing it all together and making the actual card portion, that was about all there was to it. Here is the final product. Enjoy.






And just because I couldn't get enough of the pennants, I decided to use it on the wrapping.



I wish the pictures did it justice. I tried taking pics of it from different angles so you could see how fantastic and fabulous and clever it is. This card will be hard to give away, but I know the person it's going to will love it and appreciate it as much as I ever could.

3 comments:

Anita said...

awww! aren't you sweet! great post! and I can't end a sentence without an exclamation! I hope my excessive greenie-ness doesn't drive you bananas. but if it does, bananas are easily biodegradeable. :P

Unknown said...

Lovely idea! All your creations are so lovely! Will get Gav to call soon! :D

pintobean said...

Wildfleur- I wouldn't call it excessive. I would say it's passionate. ;)

Lillian- Thx!! Can't wait to see pics of the Korea game!!