Greeting Cards

Its been a little while since I have posted anything. I had lost my inspiration due to a loss in my family and have been trying to get it back. During that time, I was doing a host of research and browsing through Michael's every now and again. As much as I am not a scrapbooker, I have become fascinated with greeting cards. Seeing that I do them anyway with my art work, I decided to see what else I could do with them directly.

Having a fascination with how big the scrapbooking phenomena has become, I went through all of those aisles that is specifically for them. The area I have a fondness for are the rubber stamps. Its been that way since I was a child and went through Frankenmuth, Michigan. I recall seeing the wealth of rubber stamps back then and just went, "aww, ooh." I don't know why but knew I would have liked to have at least one. I don't remember if I got it or not, just the feeling when I saw them.

I have a collection of stamps, punches, and various paper pads right now. I also have a collection of pictures from others who have been doing greeting cards for years and are artists in their own rights with the absolutely gorgeous things they have created.

For the last few months, I have been studying the rules when making cards. Some don't follow any thinking that whatever looks good to them should also look good to others. But that's true of any artist - isn't it? The thing is, I am  trying to sell my work. As much as I have researched with the color rules and doing your own thing, it hasn't come together. I have to like it, yet in that small space it can't be overwhelming to the viewer. Its such a fine line.

Here are my 2nd and 3rd card attempts. The 1st one is pinned on my cork board. I keep it there to remind me what not to do anymore - ever!

I stamped this card on multi-media paper and then colored it with the Tim Holtz distress markers. I was looking to make the coloring with some sort of depth. I stippled it at first and changed the colors to shade in the folded areas. It looked too flat to glue to a piece of cardstock so I tore the edges and distressed it a little  - lol. It still looked flat. And then I remembered the raised glue squares. It was too late for them, I had completed 4 cards in this same way. The only thing was missing was the sentiment, I figured I could get a little more creative with that but didn't know with what.

My second attempt was a little more fancier. I used a different stamp but water colored the back ground with a little pink and blue gray. It can't be seen really well in the picture but its there. I also tried to get fancy with the grass but didn't want as much color seeing this is supposed to be a masculine card which didn't keep me from dolling the card up with 3 tiny brads at the bottom of the piece. I used the embossing powders for the first time in the sentiment and found out why the heating tool is needed rather than my blow dryer.

Its my 3rd card and was more pleased with this one then the 2nd. I think I can do this for a little while and do well at it. I was hoping it not take as much time but these 4 cards took almost 2 hours to complete. Eh, I'm new, its won't be like that all of the time. You can see for yourself when I link this to a video.