Card Swap Cards Revealed

The 2011 Six Degrees of HLM Card Swap has finally come to a close, and I have been looking forward to sharing with the world the handiwork of all the participants. Please invite your friends and family to stop by my blog for a look, and everyone who reads this is invited to participate in the swap next year. Click on any of the photos below for a closer-up view.

Here is a photo of everyone's cards lined up on the floor:

Below is Ambra's card: 

Andrea did two designs: 

3 of the 4 images used in Anne's cards were taken in India last January: 

Deborah's pocket design was the base of each of her cards, but each one had a different greeting, and she made all her envelopes: 

Here's my card--come back to the blog in the next couple weeks to learn about the process and see more pictures of it, and maybe even win one of my extras!

Grace was inspired by a vacation she recently took to Florida: 

Haley wanted to create a 3-D card, and the printed paper she found made her think of the wind: 

Jenn's beaded cards took hours of hand sewing, but resulted in an exquisite final product:

The little heart comes out of the black fabric pocket on Jennifer's, and they're sewn around the edges: 

Katie experimented with what I recently learned is called Iris-fold, and combined the folding process with her own photography: 

Kiara made 10 unique watercolor paintings: 

Kyran pulled inspiration from her love for cooking for her card, and made all the envelopes too:

Mivvy's cards were all Christmas-themed, and most (if not all) were photos from where she lives in England: 

Nancy made and colored all her own paper (except the card stock) for her cards: 

The cards Paige submitted were similar in theme, based on the quote she found, featured in the bottom two:

Tara's been doing tons with small quilting projects lately (she recently had a project featured in 101 Patchwork Projects and Quilts--click here to read about it and see her cute name/gift tags). She was no doubt inspired to carry that into her cards: 

Another great year of the Card Swap!  And if you'll do me the honor of coming back to visit my blog again soon, you'll have a chance to WIN one of my pop-up cards to have for yourself!

Whoa, I'm In A Show!

Last week I had another excellent session with Barbara McCulloch, a Fort Collins painter.  For the first hour, we discussed business stuff (taxes, marketing, etc), and then we went on to painting techniques.  I have been re-inspired by Gaelle Boissannard, the French painter Ambra and I discovered in a card shop in Nice in 2009.  Check out her blog and scroll down to her May 11th post to see "Progression," which is a series of photos of how she made one of her paintings.  Love it!  (I wish I could speak French.)  I am hoping to do some painting a little bit in her style, and tonight!

Back to the title of this post, Barbara's studio is in the Poudre River Arts Center, and they're putting on a show in June called "Get On Your Bike and Ride It!"  Barbara encouraged me to submit my bike bands display leg as art in itself, so I did, and lo and behold, it was accepted at the last minute!

So!  Come on down to First Friday, June 3, from 6-9pm, at PRAC, located at 406 N. College Ave in Fort Collins.  If you can't make it to First Friday, the show will be up throughout the month of June and you can stop by anytime the gallery is open.

I decided to make one design of a Father's Day card that could work to sell in The Eyes Have It, and am pretty satisfied!  The card features a pocket on both sides.  In the front pocket is a paper airplane made of dictionary pages, and in the back pocket is a card insert for your message, as well as hand-drawn instructions for how to make your own paper airplane.  These planes fly surprisingly well, too!  I have to say, the scanned image isn't anything compared to the real thing.  Head on down to Old Town if you'd like to see one for yourself!

This photo shows the whole package, front and back of the card with pockets emptied. 

Betcha Couldn't Guess... Cards!

The Eyes Have It eyeglasses shop called and asked for more cards to sell!  Here are three new designs I took over to them yesterday.  The first two were inspired by other cards I saw recently in the card aisle--here are my takes on those ideas.

For the card swap, Katie used this awesome technique, called Iris-fold. (Come back next week to see her card as well as all the others!)  I learned more about Iris-fold in the Fall 2010 Fun Folds edition of Card Maker Magazine, a publication my step-mom introduced me to last month (can I just say OMG!?).  I knew this was something I needed to try out, so experimented with some of my scraps and came up with this super-fun design.

As I left the store, the owner called after me to come up with some Father's Day cards.  Yikes!  Now there is a challenge: making cards for this very specific target audience.  Hmm, how to make a card that the random dad (not my dad) will appreciate, and one his child (male or female) will be enticed to buy in the shop...

Window Art

Last weekend's baby shower was a huge success! 17 people came, the weather was perfect (high 70s with a very light breeze), there was ample delicious food, fresh flowers, none of those stupid shower games (instead, different fun games), a meaningful group art activity, and an amazing cake!

Katie and I planned for awhile what our group might be able to do to make something for the new mama/papa-to-be that would be their style and artistic, but not asking too much of non-artsy people of the group.  She had this old window that we got Paul to fix up, to which we added a back and hinged it.  So cool-looking!  So we asked the guests to each decorate a 4" square with whatever they wanted to do, something to do with what they would wish for the new parents. There were poems, quotes, meaningful words, photos, stickers, a crocheted soft thing, a quilt square, and someone even used highlighters (that's all she had!). There were also some tears as people presented their squares.  :)  Then we combined the squares under the window.  The photo above shows the basic idea, and this weekend we'll stick all of them down for good, so that it can be hung on the wall and viewed for years to come.  Then we ate cake (also featured), with candied lemon daffodils as garnish--whoa!  (Cake courtesy of Kyran, the ultimate cake-baker.)

Below is my contribution to the window art.  My mom sent me this poem a few weeks ago and it seemed so appropriate for this.  That it is about little things, nature, love and kindness, and that it came from a mom.  The border is an homage to the invitations.

(Remember to click on the images for a close-up.)

Cards Are My Life

I thought I'd show you some of the interim cards I've recently made while in the midst of my card swap.  This first one was a birthday card for Katie, and a joy to make.  It is inspired by my advent calendar design, and the orange background is fabric that I painted over with gloss medium.  Whoa!  That made for a cool effect.  Each of the little papers in the 4 pockets are able to be taken out, and each one offers a birthday wish I had for her.  The card is meant to hang, and the back is just a flat bit of light purple cardstock to cover up all my sewing marks. (By all means, click on the image for a closer-up view!)

My friend Haley is having a baby shower this weekend, so here are the invitations that Katie and I made for the occasion.  The back is entirely collaged, so if you could lift up the words paper, you would see that each one is different and colorful.  I also distressed each one around the edge with a light green ink to give them some definition.

I must admit that this has been a busier spring than I anticipated!