Season's Greeting 2011: The Grand Advent-ture

 

Holiday Greeting 2011--May Your Days Be Merry & Bright!

(Mini advent tree card shown opened and displayed on the built-in pop-up stand.)

It's that time of year, when we can share what we came up with for the holiday season's greeting. This year, I wanted to make a mini-advent calendar, just the last five days of December mind you. I'd have to have started in May to get a 100 of a full 25-day advent cards made. As it was I was starting even later than usual. And even though I strove to keep the design as simple as possible, I admit the cards whupped me. I was injured, unwell, exhausted, and cold, still struggling at 5am to get a stack of 50 cards out into the mail on the last possible day when an angel appeared. (Or at least someone with the spirit of Christmas---cards!)

But even before that, my traditional Christmas angel, my card creation partner, Mike Fullerton of Precision Graphic Systems*, Inc. (AKA; the wonderful friend with a laser cutter) worked overtime to get the dieline right and to produce the 100 laser cut cards for me and the 30 for himself. I learned so much on the project about what the laser cutting can do creatively and how to use Adobe Illustrator more proficiently from him. He is a master. Here's how they came together... and nearly didn't:

1. Once I got the card concept, I made a paper rough to size to develop how I might save time and make the cards using a laser only with no additional printing. I photographed the rough with my notes and emailed it to Mark in San Diego, California.

2. After creating the dieline for him in the most laborious way possible (created the art in Photoshop and then had to render it over again in Illustrator as the export of PS paths created far too many points for the laser.) I finally got Mark a workable file, going back and forth together. Even so, there were alterations to the perforations that Mark and to make on the fly when the uber thick paper I sent him down to use proved too substantial to work as planned. One specific to highlight Mark's cleverness, was that my initial perforations all around the advent windows wouldn't lift cleanly and open on such heavy stock. Mark changed the file to make the windows cut cleanly instead with merely two little "gaps" in the perforation which became perfect little "hinges" for the windows when opened. (You can see the precision up close in image 5 above.)

I received stacks of cards from Mark as he finished them. It was rewarding to see my concept quickly returned looking polished and professional, each shape and scoreline kissed by the laser as directed.

3. The card was designed to zig-zag fold three of the six panels in order to create a triple layer stack for the tree that embeds a hand-decorated layer in between the pre-cut windows and a backing.

I inked each window interior in various color combinations and added ultra fine glitter in contrasting color and let dry. This would be the only color on the cards and provide the cheerful contrast to the crisp white paper.

4. Before gluing the layers together, each laser cut letter in the card's holiday message was pulled out by the tip of a blade and put in a glass bowl (the reason at the end of the post).


5. Half of the time involved in crafting the cards was due to the careful gluing. I used two sizes of paint brushes to glue the backs of the window layer onto the color layer without getting any glue on the window doors themselves so they would be open-able once assembled. Then slathered on the back layer too. Alignment was managed by the scores. Some of the slot widths could have used adjusting to accommodate the heavy paper had I had the time to revise the dieline at all.

Once the advent trees were ready, each card got roll-folded into its own remaining three panels, with the last panel's tab inserting into a slot on panel 4, forming a self-mailer. Messages written on the inside of panel 5, sealed with a length of washi tape, stamped and addressed off Mark's 30 and my first 50 went as quickly as I could manage.

On the last mail day before Christmas, which was the last day an advent card would make much sense, I really thought I'd been beaten this year. It didn't look like I could make it until the phone rang. A friend, MunYin, offered to come by and help me finish sealing and addressing the mountain of cards and to take me to the post office to mail them. She even sent a little positive thought for each one she slipped into the mail slot. 

With such acts of kindness involved in their making, I'm positive that the recipients felt some delight when their card finally arrived. I have heard from many that was so.

Each year we select a random Paper Forest reader from the comments to be included on our handmade card list. To be included next year, leave a guess at how many individual letters pulled from our 100 cards ended up in the glass bowl seen above in image 4!

(*Not a paid endorsement, we just like them.)