Spuds and Blood

I made some simple Christmas cards yesterday. I've made more work intensive cards in years past, but this year I decided I just wanted to do a good old fashioned potato print. We picked up our CSA share of veggies from Goranson's Farm last Saturday, and there were some decent sized spuds to work with...

I used Dahlov Ipcar as my inspiration...

...and I used one of Lisbeth's snowflakes as a stencil to spray the cards with a silver glitter spray paint as a final touch.

But then I said to myself as I bent over to look at them, Now all these cards need is a spot of red, and that's when my nose started to bleed!

I had to go sit down and put my head back before I dripped all over these!

(Yes, sorry, this is rather gory and gross, but it seemed too funny not to share!)

Simple Cards

One day last week I was home in Woolwich and did not need to go out for any reason, so I decided to give myself the challenge of making Christmas cards from materials that I had on hand. All my printing and art supplies were at my studio in Portland, so I put on my thinking cap and looked around. I've always loved the image on this vintage Cromwell aluminum tray that I inherited from my Mom, and I figured, ooh, I could make rubbings from that...

I found a stick of graphite in the crayon box, and tucked away in a drawer, I found a stack of Miller's Falls onion skin writing paper that had been my Aunt Carolyn's. Some greens from the back yard pines, a little felt, ribbon and thread, my pinking sheers, hot glue gun, and trusty old singer sewing machine all helped me to pull together these simple, fragrant greeting cards. Oh, and I need to give credit where credit is due: I could not have accomplished this feat without the invaluable support of my feline studio assistants, Jasper and Sal...

Happy Solstice, Everyone!