So I decided to listen to their advice and do something that I really haven't had the time to play with until now. There are many projects that I have made notes to store away for when I have time to be able to play. Some of those include using acetate, using vellum, using colored inks on color paper, heat embossing with watercolors, no line coloring with Copics, coloring on metal, making Bokeh bubbles on paper, white embossing a background, using score lines to make backgrounds, stamped images with sprays and water, and try cards with all different colors to show the moods of the cards.
I decided to play with multimedia using all the things that I have purchased in the last year that I have not been able to use. I hoped it would help me decide what I am going to do for my final project. I took a big leap and decided that the project would be multimedia based. That way I incorporate a lot of the lessons and a lot of the advice from the teachers. I have to admit playing with all those different mediums really was exhilarating and fun!
I started with two pieces of white paper, a brayer and ink pads. I started putting color on the paper with the brayer in different directions. Then, I started looking at my other supplies. I had some metallic paste, I had stencils and white ink and gold paste. I just started playing, making notes of what worked and what did not. It was hard to figure out when to stop, when it had enough details, when it was finished. It really was fun and freeing!
When I was finished and the papers had dried I started looking at them and they gave me ideas for cards. There is a gold spot on one card that looked to me like a bird so I made that card with a bird on it. Another card had color blocks on the left side which made me think of squares. The triangle pieces are from the gold metallic paste that formed a triangle inside the triangles I cut. These mountains just reached out and made me feel positive and uplifted.This one looked to be a “good feeling and encouraging” card. And the circles came from the white ink and white paste that I put through the circle stencils. So I felt now my cards were ready to get started.
I cut apart the paper to feature all the things I saw on the paper. This was amazing! How much have I missed not playing more with mixed media!
I was truly using a little bit from a lot of different classes that I took during this time. I used the Cards for Guys by using the suggestion of geometric shapes. That helped me to define each of the cards to be different shapes. I used the class on Color Your Day using the brayer technique and trying to balance my colors as 70, 20 and 10. This was easy to do using only three colors however I ended up adding some yellow, pink, and green to my base colors of purples and blues. These colors gave me a strong sense of appropriate colors for male cards. The last class I used to help me with these cards was the Heat Embossing class. I embossed the sentiment on one. I also embossed each circle on the circle card giving it some extra details. I think the finished cards are a great addition to the many many cards that I have made during these classes. I think these would be good cards to give to a male friend who needed some cards to send to his friends.
To wrap this up I made a folio card to house each of the cards in my set. The folio card was made with one piece of 8 and 1/2 by 11 purple cardstock. The lines drawn are score lines. One at 2 inches from the bottom of the card and two lines in the middle (51/4 and 5 ¾) to make the card a little thicker to accommodate all the cards and their envelopes. Decorating the cards with the leftover multimedia was a great use of the leftovers. I had to work on the closure. I decided some purple polka dot ribbon would be perfect to make a tie as it complements the color and patterns on the cards. Of course where the name is on the top I would put the person's name or "for you" and give it as a gift.
This was a great challenge for me. I learned a lot about how I approach a card, how it speaks to me and how my instincts work through the card making process. I have enjoyed my time going through the academy, I have had people comment on my growth with card making, the attention to detail and the ability of the card to say something to the recipient. Thank you for visiting my blog and Instagram posts. I appreciate your support!
