i'm seriously a bit freaked out by how quickly june is flying by--it seems like we only just changed that page on the calendar last week, doesn't it? but then time flies when you're having fun, and the index card a day project is nothing if not a blast!
day 18: alphabetize
when cling stamps come all lined up neatly on a backer, i usually want to ink them all and use them as ONE BIG STAMP. so i did.
day 19: gears or gadgets
truthfully, i don't love how either of my ideas turned out.
...BUT...
i made both of these cards at my mom's kitchen table, with my sister, niece, nephew, mom and aunt also attacking index cards with markers, stickers, scissors and gluestick.
so in a kinda sorta way...
these are both my FAVORITE!!!
day 20: off prompt
yep, it's another freestyle, handcut mandala, this time using scraps of vintage paper. i think i'm starting to get the hang of cutting the shapes to fit each successive round, without outlining first. i have no idea why that's a skill i feel compelled to master, but for some reason i do, so i'm just going with it...
day 21: simplicity
to a lot of people, "simplicity" would mean they should pare down the design, use fewer elements, less of a grunge factor, and not so many layers. to me it means, "add some sewing pattern ladies"!
day 22: vanishing point
this started with a card from some earrings i bought, that just happened to have the image of birch trees and a very strong central vanishing point. in the end, i feel like my collage somewhat obscures that very feature. but on the other hand, i like the small, tiled bits of cut up card added in randomly as a "background" and i had a blast stamping and inking and trimming a couple of cards that had rejected colorburst stencilling on them, so that's the main thing!
day 23: off prompt
probably the fastest card i've made so far, as it is composed almost entirely of leftovers from other projects, most notably a little pink and green flower booklet that is going to be one of my july/aug classes at paper anthology.
(for the record that is the SLOWEST class project i've ever made; sometimes it's hard to walk the line between how you want a thing to *look* and what is do-able by a group, sharing tools, in 3 hours!)
day 24: off prompt
what i love most about ICAD is that i can try really crazy things and not worry if they're going to work or not. in this case, it's a bit of an "or not". when you're drawing mandalas, especially in a small space like a 3x5" index card, it's often good (and more dynamic looking) to draw bits of three different mandalas, letting them go off the edges, than just a tiny, centered one. so i thought that might also be true for mandalas made of tiny kawaii stickers. as it turns out, not so much. on the other hand, the great thing about not really liking your experiment is that you're not worried about "wrecking" it if you try a few more experiments on top. in this case i thought maybe pen doodles and an smudgey inked background would fix everything. they didn't, but they are definitely interesting, and i'm pretty sure i'll be trying this again! :)
probably the fastest card i've made so far, as it is composed almost entirely of leftovers from other projects, most notably a little pink and green flower booklet that is going to be one of my july/aug classes at paper anthology.
(for the record that is the SLOWEST class project i've ever made; sometimes it's hard to walk the line between how you want a thing to *look* and what is do-able by a group, sharing tools, in 3 hours!)
what i love most about ICAD is that i can try really crazy things and not worry if they're going to work or not. in this case, it's a bit of an "or not". when you're drawing mandalas, especially in a small space like a 3x5" index card, it's often good (and more dynamic looking) to draw bits of three different mandalas, letting them go off the edges, than just a tiny, centered one. so i thought that might also be true for mandalas made of tiny kawaii stickers. as it turns out, not so much. on the other hand, the great thing about not really liking your experiment is that you're not worried about "wrecking" it if you try a few more experiments on top. in this case i thought maybe pen doodles and an smudgey inked background would fix everything. they didn't, but they are definitely interesting, and i'm pretty sure i'll be trying this again! :)
in case you were thinking, "gosh this all looks like fun, but ICAD is nearly half over now, so it's way too late for me to start, and i'd never be able to catch up!" ok, for one thing, there's no need to catch up; just start now and move forward. but yeah, if you want to play along, in real time, with a social crowd on facebook or instagram, you're only going to have about 36 days instead of 61. but that's still 36 awesome opportunities to make something fun, creative and agenda-free, in the company of really cool folks. and who's to say, at the end of july, you won't want to keep going? but truly, the number, the date and the "official" prompts are just the trimmings of ICAD, it's the chance to play every day that matters. i'm willing to bet there are a few index cards somewhere in your house... :) :) :)
