Only one card away from the possibility of amazement
This evening the Apple Fitness workout instructor that I chose had a schtick of "remember, you're only ever one workout away from a better mood!!!" (Emphasis mine.) It was true. I hadn't wanted to go to the gym. I was frustrated because I'd hoped to run but I have a leg niggle and it wasn't cooperating. After the workout at the gym, I felt great.
This morning something even better happened with creativity. I had had an exceptionally bad sleep and the brain fog was real. Aiming to choose gentler tasks, I decided to make a card. For a while I was making a card every day, then I stopped. I'd made one yesterday, trying something different using newspaper as a material. I'd been happy with it, but not wowed. Then today, I sat down without a clear idea in mind. I let myself experiment. Creativity thrives with constraints, and an idea occurred to me: when my friend Elisabeth came by later to drop of holiday baking, I could give her a card. I'd been feeling stuck by my own expectations and goals around making cards, I'd been overwhelmed and unmotivated.
First I did the things that I'd already been doing with other cards recently: I took an old greeting card, and ripped it along its seam, to use the front piece for this card. There was one blank side and one side with a picture on it of a holiday themed wreath and cartoon bird. (The card was originally an open-house invitation.)
Normally I'd have glued brown paper on one side to cover the image, but I decided to try something different. What could I make for Elisabeth that would feel unique to her? I grabbed my set of stamps I'd picked up last month in qathet while I was visiting M. I stamped "to my heart friend" along the perimeter of the blank white side of the card. While I did this, I would stamp out the excess ink off each letter stamp onto brown paper. Then, I used this stamped-out area as the back of the card. It was hard to wait for the glue to dry, I was excited! When it was mostly dry, I stamped my personal stamp on it, dated the card, and tore the excess brown paper along each edge.
I felt incredibly happy with the result. Because of the stamped-out brown paper on the back, it is strikingly one-of-a-kind. And the process of making the card is evident in this paper. I love the card for itself, but also because I experimented and that led to surprise and amazement. Giving the card to Elisabeth, complete with an envelope and a stamp, felt special and a little vulnerable.
This little experiment was a breakthrough in a few ways. I now know what I want to do (roughly) for "personal" cards that I'm not planning to sell through in our hands cards. I have a way to cover the images and designs of old cardstock--with brown paper, or even newspaper, the latter giving a lovely strong sense of place. I have a way to play with words and phrases with my stamp set, without needing to immediately rely on linocut skills and materials that I don't have. And this card prototype made me feel excited about developing this type of card, with a meaningful phrase written around the perimeter, into a line of cards all on its own.
I didn't number this card, but I did date it. I'm not sure yet how these types of personal cards made for friends and family will fit my plans to share each card made for in our hands cards on the website with its card number, info, etc. My loose plan is to organize personal cards on the website in some fashion, by date created. That's why I dated this card. I'd been ambivalent about putting the website URL on these personal cards because I didn't want to seem like I was using people in my circle to boost my reach or something. But in hindsight I regret not putting it on, because if the person Elisabeth sends the card to is curious about who made it (as I would be!!), who am I to get in their way.
There are things to figure out, more than I know. I'm going to go make a few more cards now.
