Paper-mania

I'm going to be creative on my day off. My goal is to make five Hanukkah cards and ten Christmas cards as requested by a friend at work. This should be simple. I'm very creative when it comes to this stuff. I'll be done in no time.

My ambitions begin with a walk downstairs to the computer/craft room in our house. Amazingly it's pretty organized and straightened up. Almost peaceful. Ahhh, no clutter. Fast forward about twenty minutes.............

The "daybed" is now kasplattered (far worse than splattered) with 12" x 12" scrapbooking papers of a bazillion different Christmas patterns. Some are held together in tablet form, others have been singled out over time for later use. Layered oh so precisely (NOT!) alongside the large papers are roughly a dozen 4" x 6" x 1" paper tablets. These consist of spring season patterns, primary colors, fall colors, Far East motif--aka serene, Rosie Posie motifs--aka fufu, plaids, flowers, dots, lines, bugs, swirls, snowflakes, trees and plain old every day colored paper. Teetering on top of those piles are three 12" x 12" x 1" plastic bins containing, what else, the scraps from all the other papers I've used over time. There isn't a theme to these scraps though I have managed to paperclip bundles together by color.

Hmm? Well, I'm not really finding what I'm looking for. I'll take out more papers. Surely the paper to complete my design is here somewhere. Design? Design. Oh, that's right, I don't have a design in mind. It's just a blurred image of a vague idea derived from spastic brain synapses that I thought might lead to an end product. Oh well. No big deal. Dis is how I roll wid it, ya'll.

Ok. Whew! I got an idea. Got the papers to go with the idea. Got the rotary cutter, paper slicer, Xacto knife and Cricut cutter to make the papers the right size. Just go along with me here, okay? What goes on the papers though? Fast forward another twenty minutes........

The floor in front of the closet has now become the dumping ground for a bevy of clear acrylic holiday themed stamps, two dozen ink pads, two stamp blocks and one stamp cleaning pad. I pick and choose what I'd like to use today. A teeny pair of scissors, a medium pair of scissors, small hole punch, regular hole punch, glue-tape gun (coolest thing ever), vellum adhesive, repositionable adhesive, 2" wide adhesive backing machine, dimensional adhesive dots and two liquid glue sticks are all brought to the card table in the corner by the desk.

Yippee for me! I found a stamp I like in a color I like on paper I like. Sure looks boring just plopped on top of the Christmas paper background on the white card though. Oooohh, I know what I'll do. Only ten minutes lapse this time...........

The desk beside the card table across from the daybed opposite the closet is now host to a small pink tackle box. I've never gone ice fishing so don't worry we're not going there. This box contains itty-bitty eyelets and brads ranging from shades of yellow to shades of black as well as bronze, copper, silver and gold. Each one is about as big around as a pencil eraser. And if you drop the box, all the itty-bittys make a big big mess. Ask me how I know. Of course, I now need my tool set for setting eyelets, right? Get that tool set out.

Good Lord. I need tea! Zazu needs to go outside. My tummy is rumbly. "Be right back" I say out loud as if the explosion of color and doo-dads on tables and beds could understand. At this point, not one card has been assembled. Ugh. The creative process is grueling.

I'm back. This whole assembly process should go quickly now that I have a full tummy and caffeine.

All righty then. In the end, I opted for stamping a cute snowman in black ink onto white paper. Really? With an assortment of papers that would make the 64-count crayon box jealous, I chose white? Go figure. I then decided to color his scarf and hat with some really cool markers that I splurged on this past summer. I trimmed around his rotund snowman figure using the teeny scissors, adhered him to the card with dimensional stickers. He's so cute hovering over the background Christmas themed paper in all his glory. He stands beside a "Happy Holidays" stamped in red ink on, you guessed it, white paper. What's up with that? Add an eyelet on one card, a brad on another or maybe two miniscule buttons and taadaa!! I made six Christmas cards. Shoot, I need four more to complete the order.

Time to tackle the Hanukkah cards. Uhm, I'm not Jewish nor do I know much about any religion. This project makes me a little nervous. I don't want to offend anyone or do anything sacrilegious. Oddly enough this card design comes to me quickly. A menorah, the words "Happy Hanukkah" in beautiful shades of blue and a silver Star of David charm outfit the cards. I use a paper punch to make nine candles for each menorah out of blue vellum and silver paper. I realize that, indeed, I can be extremely patient as evidenced by peeling adhesive off 45 paper candles that are only 1/8" wide by 1/2" tall and putting them on the menorahs.

I often think that card-making is something anyone can do. You come up with a design, put it together and voila a greeting card. A quick, streamlined process with a tangible result.

For me, however, card-making is time consuming. I try to imagine myself as the person receiving the card. Would I like it? Would it bring a smile to my face, my heart, my mind? I wonder what's going through the mind of the recipient, what's going on in their life. I don't claim to know the inner workings of people but I'd like to think that more often than not I get it right when it comes to designing a card that speaks to someone's soul.

For me, card-making is an ever changing idea that culminates in beauty. Quite often my designs are a jumble of disconnected ideas that morph themselves into one final product. I don't sketch blueprints like engineers do. Usually the ideas are fleeting and never get repeated. So chances are if you have a card made by me, it's a one-of-a-kind original. The designs come as I sit at the table and begin my tornado of creativity. The process isn't pretty as you've seen above. It is, however, "how I roll wid it" (smile) and it's almost always productive.

For me, card-making is one of the things I do that makes ME smile. I may not have an abundance of confidence in what I can and can't do in life but I'll tell you this. I can create with my hands something that brings smiles to the world. I can brighten someone's day with a silly old piece of colored papered and smatterings of ink. As I once told a close friend "it's a hug with a fold in the middle". It can travel with you, sit by your bedside, look back at you from the mirror's edge, whatever you'd like.

And that, my friend, is what makes my heart smile. (PS: The aforementioned smile process took about 4 hours but it was worth it)