Card: Meditation Astro (Salesforce Character)

Inspiration: There's this pin I got at Dreamforce '18 of Astro.  They're sitting criss-cross apple-sauce with eyes closed.  Astro looks so calm and peaceful.  There are just too many times when I look at it that I wish I was that relaxed.  I like the idea of wishing others that level of peace and calm through a card.

How I Made It: As I often do when creating projects based on these characters, I Google'd for the image I wanted and printed off multiple copies of it in the size I needed (I typically work with a 4x5 inch card).  I use this printed image to cut out the pieces I think I'll need to make and trace their edges onto card stock to create a template.  On the template pieces I note what the part is and what color paper I think I want to use for it.

Once my template is set, I cut it out and layout it out to make sure I have all the parts.  Then I use it to trace and cut out paper in the colors I want to use.

I glue everything together and onto the card.  I finish up with some drawing in markers (Astro's closed eyes for this card) and add in some background if inspired to do so.

My card really isn't complete until I add my LBK Card Creations on the back.

Alternatives:

• I made a version with some cool patterned paper I picked up at Hollo's.  I want to find other neat paper to see how interesting I can make Astro.
• I used this image of Astro to draw a little girl meditating for my daughter's Bat Mitzvah service book - I should totally make these into cards too.
  
  
  

Learning to Quill

I've always admired the cards I've seen that were made with quilling.  So much details and it looks like lots of work went into making them.  I thought I'd give it a try to see if it's something I would enjoy doing.

I did some Google Research and then set out to pick up some simple supplies at my local crafting store.  The supplies were fairly inexpensive and I found the paper strips in the clearance aisle (so way discounted for my first attempts).

I used what I'd learned from reading and watching videos for my first attempt:

I think it turned out pretty good for a first attempt.  The biggest issue for me was that the silver colors teardrops used paper that was thinner than the colored paper used for the rest.  I also learned that starting from my star endpoints and working my way towards the middle of my shape was not really a smart method.  

So I tried again.  This time just using the silver paper (the thinner felt easier to work with).  I ended up with a pretty nice looking heart.

This time I start from one side but still ended up with some gaps and filled them in with odd little shapes.  I was also using the entire strip and was wondering how changing the length of the strip might work for projects.

I found this blog post and used the suggested worksheets to get some practice with different strip lengths.  Then I felt ready to do some more cards.  I also watched some videos with different shapes like this one that showed 35 different quilling shapes.

I wanted to use up the thicker paper and made some Egg-Shaped cards (sorry, I forgot to take pictures of them) and gave them to neighbors for Easter.

I picked up some more colors of the thinner paper and made the rest of the cards shown below.

Quilling is fun.  It relatively inexpensive.  My only worry is mailing the cards I made - I don't want the postal machines to smash them.  So I think I'll stick to using this for cards that I know I can hand-deliver.

More Cards I Made:

Left Above: 5 Tulips

Right Above: A rainbow - young child style

I liked the cloud swirls and making the squares in the rainbow but I have might have gone a little overboard with how many colors.

This was an attempt to reign in on the colors but it still wasn't quite to my liking.

This is what I finally ended up at - an cloud raining colored drops.