In Part 1 you can read about the reasons for these cards and the very start of making them. In Part 2 I show you how I made the backgrounds, and how easily distracted I am in going to create something else and how “just 10 minutes more” turns into 2 1/2 hours more of crafting.
06:18
It’s Saturday morning now, and the results are on the table. (Oh that sounds like a horribly translated Dutch saying). It’s 06:18. I don’t really feel that tired, as I have gotten too much awake to be sleepy, and decide to craft a bit. The youngest is put in a baby-sleeper thingy (wippertje) in front of the television to distract him, he is a bit ill and I don’t want him to crawl around, he needs to sleep but doesn’t want to lay down. The baby-seat is a chair about 20 scm from the ground in which a baby can sit/lie, the backrest is adjustable. Anyway, I craft, he is being sleeping half upright in that seat.
I put decoupage glue onto the bits where I pulled the top layer of the linencardstock off, to prevent it from ripping further and to seal it a bit again.
I’m realizing that if I mess up a card beyond repair I am in “trouble” – this foil technique can’t be sped up with a heating gun. So I go make some backups. I think I’m being smart by not cutting the papers to size yet. The paint can react differently at edges, especially when spraying with water, so I try to use a whole sheet.
Drip drip drop hear the raindrops falling… We put on the Disney movie Bambi when the children aren’t feeling well, the music is relaxing, more classical, and the lightchanges are minimal, too much flickering of light is annoying when ill. We’ve tried other movies, but stick to this one as it’s calm for the eyes and ears. So the past week, I’ve heard Bambi over and over and over again…
Kissing of the cards.
Kissing with a twist – starting to realize this is was maybe not a good idea as the colours might mix too much.
I somewhat manage, but I like the results of the other carsd better. This doesn’t looke as nice as the others, still to many “circles” of paint (the 4 pink spots) or too mixed with too small dots (blue)
I sprayed with water/glimmer mist, wrapped it up in kitchen foil and stopped crafting at 06: 52. (Really can’t remember what I did. Put the youngest in bed and went back to bed myself I think). Don’t think I remember the exact time – it’s in the name of the picture :P.
While posting the otherp pictures I know what I did – select stamps to use! Must have taken me half an hour at least.. go through my stamps selecting something children related… I don’t have many stamps for that. And then the texts! At first I thought of a simple Thank You on the front, but I really wanted to put in some words of comfort, hope, as well. So a stack of text stamps was selected too. Then everything was put away as the others were waking up.
12:30
Go to the gardencenter for the gifts. Home around 15:00. Display he gifts at 15:16
Finished wrapping at 17:13. Ofcourse it didn’t take me 2 hours to wrap it (might have been 30 – 45 minutes though…) but didn’t start right away and was interrupted in between.
20:24
I’ve taken the backup cards out of the foil and added some more paint to the too white areas. Wiped up the excess paint with extra cards (the Hema correspondence cards). I’ve got sooooo many cards to make with all these backgrounds I’m creating!
Right. Not my best backgrounds results. Quickly put those aside and focus on the other ones. It’s Saturday, 20:24, and the meeting is tomorrow at 10:00….
In case you’re wondering what’s on the chair: a wooden childrens chair and a towel. I think I swept the floor and didn’t put the chair back down. ANyway, the cards. I had stamped with Stazon on to the cards – didn’t have a picture of that. The prints weren’t all that good, eventhough I had put a thin cloth under the paper. The foil technique creates an uneven surface (depending on how you smooth out the paint ofcourse, less paint and more water creates a smoother surface). So some keyparts, like the face of the reading girl, were not very visible. What to do? Stamp again with a stampruler, and emboss it with black.
I have the brilliant (I think) idea to cover the allready stamped image with gesso, as I probably will not be able to stamp at the exact same spot, and as the reading lady has lots of black in it, details might get lost. Also, it enables me to use more options for colouring as more colorants take on gesso then on (glossy) paint. Just a thin coat, not necessary to cover the entire image. The girl has allready been gesso-ed and stamped/heat embossed with ultra fine black embossing powder.
All images done this way. But what, weren’t ther 8 cards? That’s right, but as I still was doubting for the image on the other two cards, I hadn’t stamped that yet.
It just looks soooo much better this way, they really pop off the card now. See the reading girl? I stamped her first on both cards, then decided I wanted to add a bit more, it became the childrens cart. I stamped that one on the pink card first, with the childrens cart completely visible. It somehow felt a bit off (the cart is floating, the chair of the girl is lower down) so I stamped it at a more correct height on the other card.
No pictures of the last two cards, as it was 22:37 and I was in a creative flow, concentrated on what I was doing.
Silly me, I can’t even mat the cards onto plain coloured cardstock when I’m in a hurry… I need to break the colour with slight pattern. I used the diluted ink spray again, see the blue cardstock. I put the stencil on a clean surface, placed a (Hema_ correspondence card on it and pressed it and lifted it carefully. Wauw! Love the result!
I repeated this for pink matting cardstock (no pictures taken – it was 01:25 at the above picture). I think I’ve got about 6 extra backgrounds now as well. Or 8.
Then I matted the card on the frame and noticed I had somewhere made a mistake in the original cutting of the cards – there was less room available for the background card then I thought. Or I had planned not using a backing paper at all. Anyway, I couldn’t put htem in plain envelopes, so I took some basic ones, laid down a heart and spritzed with glimmer mist. Then laid down a stencil of bare feet prints into the heart, and footstep prints out of the hearts, representing the growing up of the children. Most of them come to the daycare center as babies, they are loved and taken care off, and leave with at the age of 4 to go to school. I finished at 03:00u. (I know, not healthy, and now I’m writing instead of sleeping, but this is relaxing for me too.)
For F, who had a baby 4 weeks ago (when the center closed she was almost due…) She managed the baby group (0 – 2 yrs). She is stil within her pregnancy leave, and hasn’t looked for a new job ofcourse. Stamps uses:Text from Stampendous, baby from Stampinback.nl
This quote from Quietfire Designs is hard to emboss, I’ve used it before and had the same issue. I should take note to ink it very well and to put more pressure on it. This one is for M, who was very emotional about the closing, and who I want to say: look forward. She has a new job allready. Stamps uses: baby from stampinback.nl, text from Quietfire Designs
For E. She was Tobias his best friend when we moved, he had a tough time adjusting and she was his friend. If she was there, it was good. Even at home, he often says her name instead of mamma (and vice versa at the daycare center.) She is a free thinking spirit, whom to me felt a bit out of place at that daycare center as it was a more regular/basic one. She would looove a more natural one, like the one my kids are going to now. Or a more adventurous one. She hasn’t found a job yet. She’s been eligble for some jobs, but they were 24/28 hrs and not allowed a second job. To be able to pay her house she needs at least a 36 hrs contract. Unfortunately, she has to follow her wallet/head now, instead of her feelings/heart. I do hope she finds a place where she can unfold her wings. Stamps used: text and girl from VivaLasVegaStamps, cart from Deep Red.
For P, as she is fantastic with the babies. I know it isn’t a baby image but I only have one baby stamp. Babies like to “read” books too. She’s found a new job. Stamps used: cart from Deep Red, reading girl from Vivalasvegastamps, text from Crafter’s Companion Vintage Floral.
For N. She wasn’t at the meeting today as it was too emotional for her. She has her own side business, decoplaats: http://decoplaats.wix.com/decoplaats which might get a new impulse, hence the text. I think she has a new job allready too. Stamps used: Text from Quietfire Designs, Rose from Christina Renée, Le Petit Prince and his sheep from Memi-s Rainbow on etsy (although it’s more like eraser stamps and not rubber).
For K. She is working at the same daycare center as the one my kids are going to now. She absolutely loves it there! She told me, with tears in her eyes: At [..] we had 1 meeting in the 4 1/2 years I worked there. It was all communication in one direction: they had to do it like this. Last Thursday, she had her first meeting at the new daycare facility. They asked for her input, listened to her ideas and thought with her. Management and staff are one team. I am very glad she found this place, as I think she would have “rusted” at the other place: become used to it and take that as the standard, while a daycare center can be so much more then that. Stamps used: Crafter’s Companion sentiment, rose from Christina Renée, Le Petit Prince and his shieep handcraftet by/from Memi’s Rainbow on etsy.
For L. Or K? It is possible I changed my mind at the last moment. She worked a lot with the afterschool care children. I’m not sure if she has a new job allready. Stamps used: Sentiment from Crafter’s Companion, performers from Christina Renée.
For K, althought the “all things grow with love” might have been more suitable as she’s pregnant 🙂 She hasn’t got a new job yet, and as she’s pregnant she’s taking it a bit easy. Stamps used: Sentiment from Stampendous, fairies/pixies/performers from Christina Renée.
Three of the staffmembers found a job at an organizatoin that had just closed their facility in this village 1 1/2 years ago, as it wasn’t profitable anymore. Now they arranged for a very fast reopening and took on three people of this staff. Many of the children are going there now. Three haven’t gotten a job yet (one just got a baby, one is pregnant now and the other one needs more hours). One I don’t know, and one now works at the daycare center where my youngest kids are going. The oldest is going to school now so needs afterschool care, which he has at Moerveld.
Although making the cards costs me sleep, I’m quite proud of them (despite sometimes offlining them when matting them on the card – I was too tired to bother). I really like this series. Also, it feels good that I was able to do all this – set up this facebook group, get a group of people who wanted to contribute for a gift, get the gift and make the cards. A lot of work, but that’s just it: it’s the personal things that makes it count, that makes me feel very good about this. (Patting myself on the shoulder a bit). I am very often unable to help – I can’t come over to people to help as I’ve got my own children to take care of. But making people happy with my hobby is worth a few hours. One can say that something needs to be done, or this or that should happen, or we’re all very sorry about how things went, but take action upon it quick. Don’t wait for a few weeks – the initial feeling of unjustice has subsided, and you carry on with your life. The staff would have felt a bit disappointed maybe at how easily they have been forgotten. Now, when having acted upon my feelings, the staff knows how much they are appreciated. Sure, people could have gotten something themselves, but that is not possible for everyone. And even if no one had participated, I’m sure I’d have made the cards and gotten them gifts, maybe not this big but something nice still.
Thanks for reading this wall of text and images if you’re still here. Now it’s really bedtime for me, have some sleeping to do!
DaqaDoodles 