b mused

February's Postcard of the Month

That amazing pink light, jeweling the frosty tree branches.

My dear old pal, Andrea Mills - knowing how I love this -

sent me several photos capturing this magical effect:

I particularly liked these from the Websterville quarry:

Thank you, dear friend!

So, I pulled out a bunch of tempting, Valentine month-inspired papers:

(Apologies for such washed-out color in this photo!)
And then started to play:

Which then led to these next 2 that I actually glued down. *

I liked the implied rather than overt heart shape - on the left of each card, with the foil and tree branches,

and on the right with the curved marking on the little bit of sheet music.

The second card (r.) I just did too fast/wet and those rich,

sumptuous Loktas (Nepalese papers) did indeed bleed!

But I liked the core/'background' being a bit richer/darker,

so the final product is what these evolved to.

The Fixin's

(I - again - edited out a couple of these once I'd started production)

The Steps

28, this month

Step 1

Step 2 - I made sure that this pink Lokta was dry before working in that area again!

Step 3 - Some 'jewel'-ing - foil from Lake Champlain chocolates

Step 4 - Hershey's Milk Chocolate foil.**

Step 5 - Got some music back in this month's card!

Step 6 - I decided to add these as balance to the (coming) verticals.

Step 7

Step 8 - All but 3 of the postcards had this kind of doily strip.*

Step 9 - This month - again - I was determined to include some netting.
Netting > caught > a heart ensnared?! ***

Step 10 - Some black 'lace' paper

Step 11 - Some red 'lace' paper

Step 12 - No reason for this pink dot other than I just happened to have a bunch of them!

Step 13 - I wanted to mask it a bit.

Step 14 - Here come the trees!****

Step 15 - A pair! Another nod to Valentine's Day.

Step 16 - Lengthened trunks > strips from a roll of sheet music.

Step 17

Step 18 - A little more definition against the white.

Step 19

Step 20 - And now the little dots. :)

Step 21

Step 22

Step 23

Step 24

Step 25

Step 26

Step 27

Step 28

Panel of 21 of February's postcards of the month:

Fin.

* I didn't have enough doilies to cut the pieces that I wanted to use for all 21 cards (there were enough pieces for all my subscriber's cards), so 3 of them had pieces cut from this other doily.

These are 2 of the 3 cards where I used the other doily pieces:

**Quite a few of my friends regularly contribute to my candy foils stash, so I'm not sure who to credit for these! Indulgences (sugar habit) absolved (made into art)??! Well, I thank you. :) :)

***I don't usually consciously think things like this when I'm choosing materials! I tend to just choose what's most appealing, and then, after-the-fact, I often find that the materials are saying more than I'd thought! Catching my fancy for reasons that may unfold. :)

**** Whenever I use a paper punch to punch out shapes from foil or other delicate materials, I sandwich these materials between sheets of sturdier paper.
These trees were from a stash of left-over trees that had been punched out using some paper that was left over from the letter that went out to all my 'Winter' postcard recipients several years ago, proposing the 'Winter' project, and requesting the temporary loan of any collected postcards in order to make it happen.

I picked trees that were mostly white for the tree on the right, but for the tree on the left, I made sure to pick trees where some of the words or phrases were discernible.

Right as I was starting on this month's design, and then going into production, I took down the last exhibit of those 'Winter' postcard panels - after 4 years of (seasonal) shows! And I also started the process of dismantling the panels and returning all the postcards to their rightful owners/collectors. So the use of these trees from this paper in this month's postcards seemed a fitting - though bittersweet - tribute/bookend to this whole project.

Addendum

I didn't take many photos this past month, and my musings have mostly been re: hibernation (and big projects coming to an end...), but here are a few.

The afternoon light in our back yard is almost always just stunning.

And, like last winter, it was so cold when February's postcard production time rolled around that I gathered all my materials and tools from the studio,

and brought everything home, to work by the cozy wood stove,

and have that beautiful back yard as my view while I worked.