Bounty

I have been kicking this idea around for awhile now.  I like the idea that feathers represent "bounty" and "abundance."  I wanted to find a way to meld these ideas into my first Mindfulness card of the New Year.

I kept seeing pictures of gold-dipped feathers all over Pinterest.  I knew I just had to try this!  Then I had to figure out how to gather a bunch of feathers in a way that I could mount them onto a 2-D card.  I had purchased some beautiful Italian papers with colorful feathers on them.  Of course, I couldn't find them when I needed them--or couldn't remember that I had already used them--either way, I wouldn't be able to use that paper for my background.

Then I remembered that my sister-in-law had gifted me with the most gorgeous marbled papers that she found while traveling in Thailand!  I found my stash and after going through all of the papers, I settled on the background you see here.  The colors are deep and earthy with a touch of gold.  I trimmed the paper down to cover the front and back sides of  my chipboard card. This palette screamed for gold-dipped black feathers.

I could have painted the tips with gold acrylic paint, but ended up spray painting them when I saw that I had a can of metallic gold spray paint on hand.  Quick and easy!  A little painter's tape to mask the bottom half of the  feathers and voila!  Gold-dipped black feathers!

I gathered a small bunch of feathers and wrapped them with very thin wire.  I tied a gold ribbon embellished with gold beads around the wire and threaded my "bounty" tag onto it.  I glued the background paper to the front of the card and then stapled the bottom layer of feathers to the card to  secure the bundle to the card.  Fortunately, I remembered NOT to glue the background paper to the back of the card until after I had finished stapling. 

I love the richness of my finished "bounty" cards

Amid the chaos, be still

So back in March, while I was in Napa for work, I attended a Mixed Media class.  We experimented with creating lots of layers:  collage with papers, paint, stencils, stamps, mark-making, etc.  I didn't set out to create a finished piece.  Rather, I wanted to create background papers that I could use one day.  Our practice piece was created on posterboard.  Our "finished" piece was created on canvas.

For my cards this month, I think I was subconsciously inspired by the busy-ness of the holidays.  December is usually harried and stressful.  In the past, my swaps will go on hiatus for the holidays and resume in the New Year.  I was going to ask the card swap group if they wanted to skip December to focus on the holiday preparations.  I for one, came to the realization that I needed  to create cards this month.  With all of the mayhem around me, I longed to set aside quiet time to create my cards.  When I posed the option of taking a break to the group, they unanimously agreed that they too, wanted--no, needed--to create cards this month.  I was so happy to hear this.  

Each of us is really relishing the idea of creating our monthly mindfulness cards.  I shared with them that I can't recall a time that I was more inspired.  I look at our list of Mindfulness Prompts and swirls of ideas and images constantly pop into my head.  I have so many ideas for cards I want to create.  It is invigorating to feel this way.  I only wish I had more time to create.  As it is, work has been quite busy, and it really takes discipline to find the time to make my cards and to mail them out at the end of every month.  But what joy this monthly exercise brings!

So, back to this month's creation.  I took my "practice" background paper and immediately felt that it represented "chaos."  Amid the chaos, I wanted to find a place of stillness.  I illustrated this by suspending a cut out circle with the words "be still" by a piece of string.  The circle can flip from front (chaos) to back (be still).

P.S.  Since creating this card, I have run across two quotes that express a similar sentiment:  "Find calm in the cacophony" and "Out of clutter, find simplicity~John Wheeler."