Last Friday evening was the opening reception for the "Take Nothing for the Journey" art exhibit at the Cathedral House Gallery, in San Antonio, Texas. I was thrilled to get a lot of positive feedback on the three icons that I had on exhibit from both friends and guests that attended the event. Although I have not sold any of them yet, they will remain on display through December the 30th, so I know they will get plenty of exposure. God willing, all of the other artists' pieces and mine will be sold, since at least 20% of all sales will be donated to various ministries of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas.
Feeling blessed by the whole experience, as well as the holiday coming up, I was inspired to create a line of Thanksgiving Cards. A few days ago, I bought the Martha Stewart's Large Wreath Double Punch, so decided to use parts of it in all the cards. Although it's supposed to be used for Christmas projects, I enjoyed challenging myself to use it for my Thanksgiving cards. I also punched various other shapes, such as leaves and butterflies, to layer and create some dimension and interest to my designs. Finally, I embellished them with calligraphy, a leaf stamp, and natural jute cording.
In this card, I used Card Positioning Systems' Week #244 layout. However, I changed the oval focal point to a tag. I also curved the top corners of the card to mimic the shape of the tag.
In this set of cards, I continued to play with the tag concept. However, I changed the layouts, as well as the positioning of the card from vertical to horizontal. Notice that I also layered the punched shapes all around the perimeter of some of the wreath, while in others, I only accented a portion of the wreath.
I this last set of cards, I dropped the tag concept. Instead, I played around with corner punches, shaped strips, and layouts. I placed the wreaths within Artist Trading Cards for two of them. For the turkey card, I was inspired by an old K. Werner design. However, I used the inner part of the punch to fill in the back between the tail feathers, I tweaked with the layout, and I neutralized the color scheme.
I hope the recipients of these cards will enjoy getting them as much as I enjoyed making them. Although Thanksgiving is typically an American holiday, I know there are similar celebrations around the world. Therefore, whatever these may be, I hope they are filled with blessings for you and your loved ones. (By the way, I only have two followers, so I invite others reading this blog to join them.)
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