Ice Breakers

The kind of proposals I like...


make it easier for my introverted nature to talk about the cool things that I do. I've been keeping up with the promotional tour that Matthias Reim is doing for his upcoming concert tour & he reminds me of something that Michelle always tells me: if you are excited about what you do others will be excited too. I admire people who put themselves out there. I envy the people who put themselves out there. Matthias Reim is a rock star. I doubt that little dynamo needs something to break the ice when he meets new people. I do.

There have been enough random incidents while I have been out and about, painting at a table somewhere, that have taken me by surprise. I've bee asked so many times, "Do you have a card?" No card.

How will I ever get anywhere if I am not prepared when the Universe surprises me with it's favor by dropping something totally awesome into my lap? How many of those people who walked away without my card could have been a connection to something greater? I could have had a show by now. I could have had some commission work. Does that mean that it will never happen now?

By no means. Those experiences have taught me to be prepared. So I placed an order with www.moo.com. The sample cards last year were great. But I needed to work on the presentation part from my end, learn to take better photos & decide how I wanted to represent myself. So I figured it out. Placed an order and when I finally tore through the nearly child proof shipping package & opened that perfect little white jewel box...

There were 100 mini cards waiting for me. Tucked into a shiny little Mylar envelope the swivel case in which to carry them. And for the full sized business cards there was a matte finished black box the size of a cigarette pack but only half as thick. Each piece of this order screams "Great Customer Care!"

I love these guys. I love that I have some ice-breaking tools. Because I can print every single card with a different image if I want to, I don't have to explain my work. I can show it. These cards are a mini portfolio that speaks so much more confidently than I have been able to so far. Who knows... with these little gems in my hand, some of that moo confidence might rub off on me.

This is the whole kit & kaboodle.  They swivel open, dispense easily and I can clip the mini case to my purse or car keys. They will go anywhere. Which means that they can go everywhere that I don't always have access to. These cards are keepers. Thick stock, rich finish and of course... stunning artwork, these last a lot longer than the cards you could buy elsewhere for a lot less to get a lot more cards. But... do you really get more for so little money? We'll see.

 

Ta Daaaaa!

I am so excited. Finally have some cards in print! And they are so nice... like professional printed Hallmark. But more reasonably priced. The cards are a matte finish. Postcards are glossy. The way I did these won't work for mailing. I didn't want to mail them. I wanted to just be able to hand out some postcards with a clever note on the back.

And I intend to embellish the postcards. But today I have some jewelry to design and get in the bag. I start a secondary job tomorrow so I want to be in bed at a descent time. Stayed up to late anticipating working on some cool new projects. And playing with this monster of a machine. In tech terms I am behind the keyboard of a hot rod. And just like with cars... its a little more machine than I can handle.

 

Tootles!

Another reason to get on Photoshop

Editing this without Photoshop was painful. Apparently I no longer have the cool fonts in Paint. Yeah... time for an upgrade. On the upside of frustration... The final card design is done!!!!!!!!!!

Though there was some final editing in the www.moo.com browser.  The blue outline and the last line of the sentiment are missing. It looks great either way. And the words are a bit redundant. I tend to get wordy.

But I saw that book at Horizon about programmed brushes and ways to apply filters to them.... I see so many possibilities in my head and I want to get to it.




But in the meantime: This year's Christmas card is done!!! And I am selling them. 3.00 each or a dozen for 20.00.

Private messege me at facebook and we'll hook you up with gorgeous cards from moo.com

Progress 2012 Christmas Card Design

So the guord houses are on hold until I get this finished. I'm shooting to be finish by the 21st so that I can take advantage of a coupon at moo and have some Christmas cards printed. At this stage I am about 16 hours in. I know. But I've been lax in my practices for too long. And this vacation is about 3 days longer than I really needed and I needed to really stretch. So... here we are stretching.

watercolor on bristol paper

I've let my facebook friends know that I am taking orders. The deadline is the 21 November. That is when the coupon expires. 3.00 each or a dozen for 20.00 You can find me on facebook and leave me a messege with the pertinent information. Pay Pal will be quickest.

The final painting I hope will be done tomorrow. And another picture will be up either tomorrow or Monday showing the final product.

Not Your Average Plate of Cupcakes

Here we go! Today was cake decorating day. So there is a plate of cupcake tops and bottoms waiting to get all fancy with the sprinkles. There is a tin of glitter. A tin of flocking, tubes of glitter glue and loose jars of seasonal colors. And then top right of the plate are two tubes of micro beads. Can you say non-parel boys and girls.

I'd love to wax on and on about today's art fun. But I have a farewell dinner to attend in a few hours and a nap, shower and some rooting around in the closet to do. Oh. And batteries. I've finally run down this batch of double As. I love the new camera! It is not a power hog like the old one I had. And the macro function is so much nicer.

What? You want to see the finished cards? OK. Both are for birthdays.

3 hour card

So the boss is turning 40. And for his birthday he is being flooded with cards. I knew about this 2 weeks ago and tonight just got around to making it. Two or three days ago I knew what I wanted to do and have been working out in my head how this was going to happen. And I almost knew the colors. The boss is male so I wanted to keep to boyish kinds of colors. And I did a "boyish" kind of theme because he is so dang young looking. He is always smiling and is super Uber friendly... in the hospitality business you have to be. So here we go:

Birthday Cupcake
brown "chocolate sprinkles",
sculpted paper "gum paste
flower" & striped "paper liner".

I started with a sketch after looking at cupcake photos on line. You'd think that a cupcake would be a simple thing to whip out. But like so many simple things in life... you really have to look at what is in front of you to truly see it. Cupcakes are just one of those things. So I cut my first pieces from the sketch paper, laid it out on the printed paper and cut.

It was after I started laying the pieces out to add some chalk ink shadows that I realized my stripes were not vertical which made the whole thing look tippy... and someohow the frosting got sloppy and looked like a Cupcake Wars reject. So I cut again.

Did I mention that I did not even start on this until 12:30 a.m.? 

When I had the cupcake bottom & frosting cut out and proportioned to fill most of the card plane, I used chalk inks and the direct to paper method to create shading. The blues and greens on the frosting did not show up in the photo... the fault of my camera skills. Next I cut a strip from a floral pattern and edged it with a redish chalk ink. Then using a ribbon punch form ek Sucess, I punched across a green paper, edged it in brown and hit it in places with the same redish ink. Chalk inks dry faster than pigment inks, but not so fast that you can handle it right away. So while those pieces dried I sculpted a 3D embellishment.

K&Comapny's Julienne pad has a beautiful magnolia paper. They were perfect to be my gum paste flower embellishment. Um... did I mention that I had the Food Network on while I was crafting? So yeah.... The magnolia is constructed from two layers. The main layer is sculpted with a stylus and cut along some lines so that I could make some of the petals pop up without adding bulk since this will be mailed. The second layed uses only the center portion of a second large flower. After those three petals were also sculpted with a stylus they were mounted with foam dots. I added a little rosey red to the petals to pull another color from the floral paper into the cupcake design.

Once I decided how it would sit on the frosting I eyeballed where the sprinkles would go. I used mono glue and a fine reddish brown glitter to finish it off. Next it was time to assemble the card. And it was hideous. I had chosen the black and white damask paper for the card instead of plain white because it would be more dynamic. But there was so much going on with the card that it got too busy. So I added that green panel edged with the brown chalk ink. Then I ran a black micron pen around the green panel to frame it a bit. Once I got it assembled I liked it a lot better.

The last thing to do was stamp the bosses name in white on the cupcake to tie all the colors together.