Participating in a Card Swap!

"Trust the Process"

This year I participated in the "Inspirational Card Deck Swap" with

Jessica Brogan of  In Search of Dessert 

I had read about her first swap earlier this year

and when she decided to hold another swap this fall

I knew I wanted to participate this time.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jessica

at Squam by the Sea this year

in the Outer Banks,

how wonderful it is to connect with

new friends from our social media world

and actually have a conversation

in person!

Jessica inspires me in so many ways,

please check out her link above to

her beautiful blog,

she is doing amazing work over there!

The deadline to have our 52 cards

to Jessica is November 15th,

so I am very proud of myself

for having completed and mailed

them off to Jessica this week!

It all began when Hurricane Sandy

decided to do her number on the East Coast,

and on Monday last week, she pounced

on Virginia Beach!

My office was closed and I found myself with a day off.

 I spent the entire day beginning and working 

on the process!

(Kinda cool hearing wind and rain while creating)

The challenge was to  start with a deck of cards,

all 52 of them

and I started playing away.

First Layer was white gesso

I used Liquitex gesso . . . I love it for many things

(even covering up pages for journaling)

Decided the second layer would be a stencil

Robin's Egg is my favorite color

Starting to come to life

Something starting to happen here ...

Added lots of different dimensions

to the cards that I use in my own

collage pieces

I have learned along the way

More Card Detail

(bubble wrap, smudges, rollers, palette scraping, bottle caps) 

A Little rubber stamping too

Almost there!

Writing down 52

Inspirational Thoughts for my cards

I then decided to type them on the computer

in a favorite font

Print onto Tracing Paper

and use on my cards

(learned about tracing paper on a tutorial)

I wasn't sure if it would work in my printer

Added inspirational quotes with matte gel medium

This is my favorite one!

I used a fun metallic marker around

each quote

Added a heart from ephemera 

to each card

A thin layer of top coat

Then finished with black gesso

along the borders

My hubby would just pass by the kitchen table

day after day to see how they progressed

he didn't get it

but knew it was something I had to do!

Love my hubby!

I packaged them up pretty

and mailed them off at the end

of this week

after thoroughly drying.

Now I wait . . . 

later this year Jessica will mail back to me

with 52 new cards (including one of my own)

and I will have a deck of inspiration

to begin my new Creative Year with!

One for each week to ponder on!

What fun it was, it took a lot of time

but was worth every minute of it.

Thanks Jess for putting it all together for us,

now the work is on you!

This was a great artistic experience

just having returned from the Sea!