Christmas in July!

It's Christmas in July here at Paper Owl Artists.  We've been busy making Christmas cards for special orders and put up in our Etsy shop.  Christmas trees, snowmen, and snowflakes are the themes for today.  Eight cards - $15, mix and match or make them all the same.  Your choice too of sentiment.  Post a comment or message us if interested or  visit our etsy shop. www.paperowlartists.etsy.com

                                                                   A sparkly shabby Xmas tree

                                                            Embossed snownman cheer

Diamond snowflakes

And request your sentiment from the following:

Remember, it's never too early to think Christmas!

Swap Card

Today I'm making a couple of friendly greeting cards for a card swap I'm participating in through Swap-Bot.com.  It's a fun web site that hosts numerous swaps on everything imagineable.  I like to participate in the postcard, penpaling, bookmark, magnet, and Cardmaking swaps.  The card below is for the "Easy Peasy" card swap.  

                      Inside of card

               (excuse the shadows)

The card was simple to make for sure - a few Sizzix flowers and leaf diecuts, a couple of stamped sayings and some colorful card stock.  Truly easy peasy.   I think I'll make a few more just to have on hand!

Fiddling With a Card Idea

Last night I was fiddling with a card idea. I'd seen a video showing the watercolor technique and I LOVE watercolor and watercoloring.  The demonstrator made the technique look really simple so I thought this should be easy peasy for me to do.  WRONG!!  To start with I should have used watercolor paper but I was too lazy to get some so I used regular card stock instead.  Here was the result of a small sample:

Crummy colors, runny ink.  Miserable looking.

Second try - still on card stock (yes, I was lazy and stubborn) - a little better color choice but not very attractive.  I like the first sample better, if I had to choose - 

Next try, better but still crummy and the stamp is too low.

Final try for the night was this one -

Drippy and messy but the colors were okay.  Later this week I'll try again, this time on watercolor paper and more patience.  Maybe I'll even watch the demo video again. 

Check out our nicer cards at www.paperowlartists.etsy.com

The History of Greeting Cards - Part 2

Here we go with our continuation of the history of greeting cards --

         Greeting cards = Big business

In 2009, it was estimated that the U.S. Greeting card industry generated $7 billion in retail sales, with Hallmark as the industry leader.  (Fun fact - Hallmark started as a postcard company started by the Hall brothers.  Their slogan "when you care enough to send the very best" was penned on a cocktail napkin in 1944.  The napkin is on display today in their corporate headquarters).  Today, the greeting card business is projected to reach global sales of $30.4 billion by 2015.  (Certainly there's room for handmade greeting cards, don't you think?)

                    Paper Owl Artists

        www.paperowlartists.etsy.com

              Enough with the history!!

So, with the bare bones history lesson over, let's get back to the original question ... What is a greeting card?

Is it a single sheet of car stock with a greeting on it?  Does it have to fold in half, or fold at all for that matter?  How about size and shape?  Does it have to confirm to a standard or can it be whatever the artist envisions it to be?

                    Set of four cards

                 Pencil drawings from

        1943 edition of Nature magazine

         www.paperowlartists.etsy.com

The answer, without sounding too Zen, is that a card is what the creator wants it to be.  The only limit to cards these days is in the imagination and creativity of the designer.  

Here at Paper Owl Artists, we have made simple fold-over cards, multilayered cards, square cards, rectangular cards, even round cards!  We have pop-up cards, cards using antique magazine art, vintage cigar bands, even paint swatch swatch strips!  :-). And we have cards for every occasion.  Most of our cards are blank on the inside to encourage our customers to express their own thoughts and feelings.  There are times we add an inside sentiment or decoration, more to carry the theme of the card to the inside than to take away from the actual writing in the card by the sender.

We are strong supporters of "real mail"  and the written word and hope that our customers and supporters feel the same.  The written word is NOT dead, not even close.  It is doubtful it ever will make it to the endangered species list either, as long as there are people like us ... Card designers, card makers, and card senders ... To keep it alive.

So after all of this I guess the answer to our question is this ...

A greeting card is a way of expressing oneself in feelings, wishes, and hopes to another person in any way that you, the sender, sees as doing the job best.  Shape, size, color or style are secondary to the message.  

So next time you need a card for an occasion or just to say hello, think not only of the mass produced retail card industry.  Think also of the independent card maker who has a love not only for the handmade card, but also for the design, feel and shape if a card as well as the history behind the industry.

                     Happy Birthday

       www.paperowlartists.etsy.com

Cardmaking and The X-Men

It was a nice day for Paper Owl Artists - a lazy and late start to the morning, card and journal making filled the early to mid afternoon and then for our evening entertainment, the new X-Men movie!  It was fabulous, if you like the X-Men.  I won't give you any movie spoilers here.  Instead take a look at a few if the cards I made today.  All will be for sale shortly in our Etsy shop, www.paperowlartists.etsy.com.  Come visit us for the finest and most unique handmade greeting cards.

Real Men Do Make Cards!

Whomever has said that real men don't design or craft handmade greeting cards have never seen Jeff's work.  Take a look for yourself and see what this guy created the other night.  He loves to work with structure, cutting, and diecuts.

A beautifully designed card made with Japanese paper.

Vibrant tropical colors, again made with Japanese papers.

A stamped pattern set atop a piece of translucent vellum

which sits over a piece of art Jennifer created on her gelli plate. 

A very ethereal looking card.

Same concept, this one using a 

wildflower motif.  It looks like the flowers are sitting 

in a sunset or sunrise, doesn't it?

All cards are available on Paper Owl Artists Etsy shop.  Custom orders always welcome!