Cardmaking Challenge Part #1 — Building Skills through AECP Certification Program

Note: I am writing a separate post on the process of creating these cards. This post looks at the design of the project as a whole.

My teacher in the Altenew Educator Card Making (AECP) Program, Erum Tasneem, issued me a challenge one third of the way through the program. The challenge consists of designing two sets of cards drawing on similar motifs and theme, but making one for men and the other for women. 

I need to incorporate and explain three technical components I learned so far. These his and hers sets were to be packaged creatively and I should incorporate the use of at least one recycled item in the packaging. Everything was to be hand made.

If you ask most people what a his and hers set means, the majority would come up with similar characteristics: durable vs delicate, plain vs frilly, bold vs soft, flowery vs architectural, you get the idea.

 Now, I know exactly what my teacher meant. On a personal level, I lean towards traditional feminine aesthetics. But I want to make a disclaimer here. I approached this challenge as designing two sets of cards: one that is more spare and stoic and the other more flowery and embellished. I saw them as opposite styles that would make the sets an interesting study in contrasts. Not so much a gender difference.

Now-a-days, many people choose a non-binary identity, and for them, designating certain kinds of attributes as unique to men and women make them feel invisible.  As gender norms continue changing in our society, I think designers will need to reflect those changes in their designs. 

The common attributes of blue for boys and pink for girls and all that comes with that aesthetic is changing; and the design industry will need to reflect that to stay relevant. But, for simplicity sake here, I will refer to the two sets of cards in the rest of this post as his and hers. 

I used a bee concept for my cards and the theme for them is "encouragement". The five cards shown above are my hers set and the five shown below are my men's set. I think the differences are more apparent when viewing the cards side by side. Here are a couple of the twin cards. 

The two Shine cards demonstrate my three chosen components excellently. I used inking techniques, die cutting and bling as my three components. 

Both cards used the Altenew Gradient Stripes Cover Die for the peek-a-boo peek into the designs behind. I think this is a fun aspect. It draws the viewer into the composition. They have to really look to see what is underneath. I also used the Altenew Shine Die Set for the sentiment on both. (This is a versatile die set; and it is on 50% clearance right now!)

The inking techniques were different between the two. The male card used an ombre inking that pulled colors from honey with Altenew's Summer Afternoon fresh dye mini ink set.

The woman's card used layered stencils from the Altenew Honeycomb Haven Craft Your Life Project. This is the set I used in all cards in these sets.

Lastly, the bling on the women's card is much more noticeable in real life than the selected sequins on the male card but they both really added the final touch to these presentations. Both cards used metallic cardstock for the sentiment. The women's card used rhinestones on the top and bottom edges while the men's card placed individual Altenew matte sequins down the card vertically. (I like this bottle of sequins because it is rare to find matte sequins but also it contains different sizes and styles in same copper color. AND, let me hear you say it : 'it is on clearance right now!')

In another set of cards, I chose to create two cards that did not have any text  sentiment. One can easily be added inside.

I am disappointed to see that

the subtlety of these surfaces are not as apparent in photographs but I provide a couple of detail photos here. The women's card in this set is tied with one other card as my favorite in the whole project. The embossed texture provides a rich background that is appealing but does not 'take over'. In the detail to the right, I hope you can feel the delicate complexity of this composition. Using rhinestone chains on the top and bottom really made this card bling-y. It reflects light in a major way.

I used individual elements from the Honeycomb Haven set die. I die cut with Altenew's white cardstock and hand colored the pieces with alcohol markers to be able to blend colors (acrylic markers are not blendable, they are opaque). I enjoyed creating my own composition from the cut out pieces, not simply duplicating the arrangement on the cover die. 

The men's card continues the no-text composition style with a richly stamped background using the stencil layering set from Honeycomb Haven.

Whereas the women's card had no one focal point but invited a slow perusal over the whole surface, the men's card focus is the honey pot and bees. In my decision to not use flowers in a central way for the men's card, I chose a background that is predominantly vine and bees. But I do reference flowers with two small flower outlines that I kept non-descript with a single wash of pale blue and no details. 

These next two cards show the biggest difference between the two approaches. The men's card is much less embellished. And though I added shine with a metallic gold border, I chose a thick plain band for the border. The men's card draws much of it's visual interest from the embossed background. The stamped honey jar in both cards used an ombre stamping technique and it was fun blending many colors.

 I did something different with the women's card's foliage and flowers. I wanted to add a subtle texture to the coloring. I sprayed the die cuts with a pigmented spray (Lindy's Gang). I was able to shade with different colors and the result is a soft wash of sprayed inks. 

I love the effect. That sole difference- spraying ink instead of stamping- created a velvety feel to the foliage. You can really see the difference between the green of these leaves and the green in the "You" in the cards below. This is my other card tied for my favorite of the project.

The last two sets of cards show similar differences. With the "Bee-lieve" pair, I made the women's card more ornate with a delicate floral background. She also got some shine with the metallic gold frame around the sentiment. I did insert a flower into the men's "Bee-lieve" card but I kept it non-descript with a muted color.

Both of the "You are not alone" cards have an embossed hive pattern. The women's card has a stamped floral background over the embossed surface. The result is a busy, intricate design. The men's card uses the same layout but with a  a lighter hand and the bees were hand watercolored smaller.

For the packaging, I recycled fancy tissue paper from previous year's holiday gifts. One is solid gold and I used that for the men's package. The women's package used a white tissue with gold metallic circles. I decoupaged two card boxes with these tissues and applied a couple layers of matte medium. Once dry, I used metallic gold acrylic paint and a sea sponge to dab gold color all over the boxes. This created a nice texture and unified the two boxes more. 

I used a die cut of a Christmas tree to create an ornament to decorate the boxes further, since it is now holiday time. I used several layers of holiday napkins from previous Christmas'. I decoupaged the tree ornament and once dry, I sponged gold acrylic paint all over lightly. I hung them with metallic thread. Finally, I made a wax seal in gold to top the boxes and hang the ornament. 

This challenge was daunting. But once I broke the tasks into small chunks, I began to enjoy the process. It was good practice comparing and contrasting aesthetics.

I liked creating a cohesive whole while flaunting subtle differences. I got to experiment with design elements and how they effect a composition. I learned a matte sequin still embellishes but in a quieter way than it's shiny sequin counterpart. I saw how spraying pigment inks can create a different texture than layering stencils with stamped ink. And most importantly, I learned to look beyond the compositions displayed on the kits and to think outside the box to come up with my own unique designs.

As far as labeling certain aesthetics as masculine and feminine, I still remain somewhat rebellious. I prefer to think of cards being appealing to a certain type of person, not so much the sex of the person. (My  boyfriend would love a beautiful Altenew floral card! ) But, I do get it. I am accommodating and can certainly deliver a card set that adheres to traditional masculine or feminine aesthetics. 

 

What are your thoughts about designing differently for men and women? 

Healing through art. My 1 year recovery seen through my art journal

 September 19th is the one year anniversary of my emergency hospitalization for cervical myelopathy that resulted in cervical surgery (corpectomy and fusions). Three months after that on December 27th, I again had an emergency hospitalization and that resulted in thoracic spinal sugery (T9-12)

You see, my entire spine has sustained a lot of damage over time; to the point that the spinal compression was severe enough for paralysis and fatality. I ended up having two complicated neurosugeries  (cervical and thoracic) over three months. 

I am coming up on my one year anniversary of my first emergency hospitalization/surgery. I want to share with you two different art journal entries I created this year about my recoveries. To hear a much more detailed story with visuals, check out my You Tube video here. 

This first page was made five months post op from my cervical surgery. As you can see, I felt stuck, angry and sad. This was most optimistic page I created at that time. I tried to envision hope with the yellow at top. But falling over and pain were paramount in my mind. The overall sense in this piece is being unable to break through brick walls, tears, pain and not being able to walk or balance. I felt defeated.

In the second art journal spread, I focussed on the physical realm and the emotional realms. 

Having been to hell and back in both those worlds, I have adopted the phoenix as a special animal symbol for myself. Legend has it that the phoenix re-births itself after being consumed by fire. 

Yes. She swooped up beside me and I felt the wisps of flames licking my skin as she flew by.

You still see tears but I am now releasing some emotional tears (blue), not just the red ones of pain and fury. I incorporated butterflies for transformation and drew on the wisdom of my ancestors through the High Priestess tarot card. 

I only used paper that I had drawn on, painted, stamped or altered in some way. I like working in layers. Can you spot the three hospital bands in each art journal piece? They are white, red and yellow. They were color copies of the actual bands I wore for a month. You can find the white band in the video.  This photo cropped it out.

There is so much to say about this first year of recovery. It is like an onion. But what I take away is resilience, acceptance and yet, still I hold onto hope. And maybe one more . . . gratitude. Yes, I'll leave it at that.