Cabinet Cards

***Before I start in with cabinet cards, I want to remind y’all that I am auctioning and doing raffles with yarn to raise money for heifer.org.  The listings start today, Thursday, and will continue for the next several weeks, so please check back.  It’s for a good cause!  To be part of it, click here and look for the "Give Back" listings.

On to cabinet cards.  I haven’t been able to share art for what seems like forever, due to issues created by the men in my house totally racking a brand new computer.  I’ve rigged it so I can scan to the computer that has major issues, transfer to my laptop using a primitive USB picture card (they’ve messed with the computer so much it won’t even recognize my external hard drive) and give you a little peek.  Like this.

This is Petunia, and she was my little warm up piece for Susie LaFond’s cabinet card book project.  Susie’s idea was that we would each alter a cabinet card, front and back, and then make enough (embellished) copies for each participating artist.  In addition, we were each to make two more original cabinet cards, which would be used as the front and back covers for one of the books.  Susie always comes up with the best ideas, and I love playing in her swaps.

I finally ended up with this card as the one I decided to copy.

I rarely draw or paint because, well, I can’t.  But this card cried out to become a nesting baby in a tree, so I did enough painting with acrylics to get a tree that my little nest could perch in.  I dislike working on original cabinet cards, because of the sense that they are someone’s family, so I chose cards that were damaged beyond repair for this project — the acrylic paint is covering up lots of nasty spots and splotches and I think this sweet little baby is probably happy to be having an altered life.  I didn’t scan after embellishing because, well, a girl has to have a few surprises up her sleeve.

This is one of the cards I did for covers.

This is the first time I played with my glass glitter (flower centers) and it is some seriously cool stuff.  I must have been a crow in a former life because I love shiney things.  It’s going to be a temptation to use this glitter everywhere.

And this is my favorite of all the backs.  I think I’ll print out the scan and use it as the basis for some more art this week.

This was a fun idea and lots of good motivation to reach out and try new things.  I’m not quite done with altering cabinet cards — I have some more ideas I want to play with, but it’s time to move on to my round robin book for this month and a few other things, so they will have to wait.