Artist by Nature, Books by Design

“A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.” – Garrison Keillor

By Rachel on November 15, 2017

First baby Holiday ‘card’. I cut out strips of the three pictures and sent them as such. They also became gift tags on packages.

If you think this is a cheap ploy to showcase my baby’s undeniable cuteness, you are correct. If you think I still have a baby, you are off by eleven years. Sigh. Don’t blink parents….

Finishing up my archive of previous holiday cards. Maybe there are ideas to be gleamed, maybe projects to avoid.

Potato stamping cards pre-dated motherhood by 10 years.

The best part of potato stamping is the cheap tools and endless possibilities. Almost any paint will do and when you’re tired of a design you simply cut it off and create a new one. A great activity to get messy with. No cleaning as you go. If you don’t have paint on your face or in your hair by the time you’re finished, something went terribly wrong.

Simple black and white copies on card stock. Add felt if you need a reason to show off your newly pierced tongue.

Any source of cuteness is vital for a successful holiday card. What’s cuter than your kid brother from 20 plus years ago? Or your confused cat? (I know, I know, dogs! But I didn’t have dogs back in my singles days.) Add simple graphics, a trendy font, and a best attempt at broad appeal humor and wha-laa. You’ve managed to make a HUGE number of holiday cards for a MINIMUM number of dollars.

Mini books were a favorite way to share mediocre but sweet photos.

More than a few friends have received these little bookies and cards full of less than average photos. Before digital photography, much of my monthly income was spent printing photos, then scanning them back in and arranging them so that they felt purposely arty.

**Top:** Access to transparent sticker stock and a Christmas away from family was the inspiration for the top card. **Right:** Black and white photos copied onto colored stock. **Bottom:** Copies of photos folded to hold actual photos.

Pictures of a mini tree wearing purple lights and small plastic toys made for a dynamic card one year, with 4 optional front covers and a page of stickers for your cutting and sticking pleasure. The fact that an entire single-girl evening was spent poking holes thru and threading toys is testament to how much I love decorating for the holidays, at the same time, not buying new stuff.

The sticker stock was courtesy of Creative Type and Graphics as it existed in 1998. When I saw what was possible through high end digital printing, my brains caught afire with ideas for cards and books. I made up projects just to try new options.

The other two cards shown above are copied photos that serve as an envelope. The green and kraft paper project featured photos taken on a solo journey from Texas to Colorado for a cousin’s wedding. The photos inside were selfies taken with family at the wedding.

The black and white piece is little bit Dove Creek on the outside, a little bit NYC on the inside, wrapped in a strip baring either a fictional family photo or me. Once the receiver finally made it into the card, a pile of pictures I’d taken of them would fall out.

Family selfies and type set photos. We’re talking 9¢ a piece y’all.

Simple photos were (and still are) my go to card through the years. It’s an easy and inexpensive solution for sharing the unbearable cuteness of children and furry critters. I tend to personalize them one way or another – no factory graphics here. Someday I may actually pay a professional photographer. Maybe.

The poem included in the 2007 card:

And finally – the cards that never made it into the mail. Printed, produced and paid for but abandoned nonetheless:

**Left:** Shalequa inspired silliness. **Middle**: Too terrible to try. **Right:** Office Depot, you did real good, but I didn’t have time to correct ya.

The magenta cat cards with the grouchy green polaroids were made in my apartment in Brooklyn. Designed for a clear envelop to entertain the mail carriers. Out right vanity kept me from mailing the middle card. The mini cards on the far right weren’t centered once printed. A few made it into the hands of a some sweet friends but not to the wider world. Poor planning is all I can come up with.

Whew – with the past ever behind me and now documented I look forward to something unexpected for …. gulp … NEXT MONTH!! Geez – Get going!

Holiday cards

“Each person’s life is like a mandala – a vast, limitless circle. We stand in the center of our own circle, and everything we see, hear and think forms the mandala of our life.” – Pema Chodron

By Rachel on October 11, 2017

This may have been my favorite card ever. Designed to fold and create an envelope with label on one side and activity on the other, with our family photo collage card inside.

My kiddo learned how to draw paper mandalas in art class and we spent hours making them. It’s truly relaxing and strangely rejuvenating. And what do folks need more during the holidays than a chance to just be still, reflective, calm?

The instructions took a little doing to get them to both fit and be readable. Most likely no one actually created their own mandala – but the opportunity to make one now is here!

Included in the card were links to this mesmerizing Tibetan sand mandala construction and destruction as well as this mind blowing illustration of how the planets rotate the sun forming their own mandala. Scroll down about 3 images and you’ll see a ’13 Venus years, 8 Earth years’ illustration. You’ll know you’re there when your jaw is hanging open.

Minor efforts transformed our hamster into Santa and ‘lil dog into a reindeer -like beast for our address labels, little gift tags and cards my son gave to friends.

Sadly I was swayed by the Office Depot gal to print the cards 2-up (to save paper and money! Why didn’t I think of that?) instead of sticking to my original plan to print them 1-up (because they are too small to hold the 4×6″ photo prints, I DID think of that, duh!). But – ya know, perfection is for those who can’t laugh at themselves, and have bigger budgets than me I guess.

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Holiday cards

“Handmade presents are scary because they reveal that you have too much free time.” – Douglas Coupland

By Rachel on October 6, 2017

Pop-Up Christmas and New Years card from 2014. Outside of photo prints at less than ¢9 per, no new paper was needed for this piece. Red card stock from years ago, small envelopes pre-printed with old address, over which we put a label.

For the third time in my entire life, I’m thinking about Christmas before late November. Cards specifically. It’s absolutely the best part of the holidays for me. For the record, ‘Christmas card’ is loose terminology. New Years Cards or Happy End of Last Year Cards are probably more accurate. Whenever they get mailed, they are always an I love you to my people.

Forget the materialism and crap music we can’t escape every December. Focus only on the gazillions of Earthlings all thinking about those they love and how to be generous with them. What powerful juice that is. Gives me happy chills. (Not to discount the misery many folks feel around the holidays. Their pain is real and I respect that my glee is no substitute for their real feelings to the contrary.)

Making cards is one of the few projects I enjoy from seed to harvest. Imagining, doodling, assessing the current collection of envelops and papers. Allowing myself to linger in the photo collection amassed throughout the year, noting my family’s changes and growth spurts. Going through my address book and email lists to determine a final count. Whittling a huge idea into something that fits a tight budget. Making mock ups and eventually bringing a two dimensional sketch into something I can hold. Creating a silly address label. Even addressing envelops with the right movie as company – something I have previously saturated myself with like say Star Wars (IV, V, VI), Harry Potter (all of ‘um), Princess Bride, Waiting to Exhale, a whole season of Sex and the City – you feel me.

It’s a gift to me to spend a wee bit of in-my-mind time with the folks I’ve gathered in my life and those I inherited that fill me up with love. Sifting through a personal history of card making has been fairly entertaining, thinking the next couple posts will be dedicated to the preservation of such non-sensery.

Then there are the cards that come my way – what a joy to see my friends and their ever morphing kiddos. My family far and wide. Cousins and 2nd cousins and previous co-workers, and new acquaintances. My sweet great aunt who never fails to write a three page letter. Not copied! Hand written! I even love the cards we get from the Austin Wildlife Rescue.

I’ve collected and cherished these sacred scrapes of my tribe’s earliest recorded history since I was old enough to have my own address. Before that even. So much cuteness and thoughtfulness and beauty and peeks into the worlds of those I love.

Alas, the paper bits have piled up and are bound to do what piles do – decay. And yes, it is a powerful and unstoppable process. Mass changing shape and form. Hard to soft, dry to wet. Precious paper to silverfish poop. We can slow it down some, but there is no real stopping it, nor can there be. Without decay, there would be no room for the new, the fresh, the evolved.

But better to be worn out than rotted out. Seen and touched and used and loved. Fantasies of repurposing holiday cards have floated around my head for years and as my collection is now grown in volume such that I no longer want to expand my precious storage space to accommodate it, this might be the year for catharsis.

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