Sunday 23 August 2009

r.s.v.p cards for the two weddings we've been invited to this year...


When I set out to make these cards I didn't know what I was going to make; I just knew I wanted them to be simple and nice to look at, something the couples might want to keep.

In my old bedroom are a few boxes of old art materials. Stuff me and my mum used to use for making things; scraps of sparkly fabric, tubes of beads, glue, pens, carbon paper, old spools of thread, coloured paper, stickers... a lot of it comes from my Grandma and the charity shop she works in; bits of lace, teddy bear eyes, sequins picked off jumpers, general treasure (to me at least!) Sometimes I like looking through it all and just seeing what jumps out at me, keeping the person I'm making for in mind, but not really having an idea of the finished thing in my head at all... Anyway, this time I came across some blank brown cards...

I've been looking at a book of German scherenschnitte, and I thought maybe I would put some red paper inside the card then cut out the a design from the front so the red showed through, but I couldn't find a scalpel. Instead I drew the design freehand with a felt tip pen then tipped black embossing powder all over it. A quick shake and few seconds held over the toaster later and it's lovely and shiny and smooth, I'd forgotten how much fun this stuff is :)


Because I had to work quickly and get the powder on before the pen dried, the drawing has a looseness that I like. I know if I'd drawn it out in pencil first I would spend ages rubbing it out and trying to get it perfect and symmetrical. I should remember it's good to let myself go once in a while...

5 comments:

Sara Bowen said...

How cool are they! I've never heard of embossing powder but it looks like fun. Sara

Claire said...

I have heaps of embossing powder that I've never used because I thought that it was mainly for stamping, and I don't have any stamps :o)

I didn't think to use it with felt tipped pen, thanks for the idea. I'm going to try it.

Gina said...

Very elegant! I never knew you could use embossing powder with felt tip pens.

Paper Chipmunk (aka Ellen) said...

So elegant! I had no idea you could use a toaster to heat embossing ink--everyone I know uses some kind of fancy heat gun or something. I've never used the stuff myself, but this makes me think I might actually want to try it. Thanks.

(And these *are* beautiful cards.)

Monica Holtsclaw said...

These will be great keepsakes for your bride and groom friends :) Lovely freehand drawing!