Simple Leaf Card

I created several of this card for the church card ministry to send this month. Last month I created a bunch of extra cards, so they had a surplus that carried them over into this month. This bought me a little extra time to create this month. I have to say that I’ve been feeling a little meh about crafting lately, so it was good that I had some more time. I’ve been reading a lot – the Goodreads Challenges have really hooked me – and I’ve been putting card making on the back burner. But time (and the card supply) was running out, so I needed to get my butt in gear. This design was actually quite simple to make, and I put the cards together quickly. I hope the October birthday folks in the second half of the month enjoy them.

I just had an epiphany about my lack of enthusiasm lately for making cards! Back in August some of the cards that I created for the card ministry were rejected by the Post Office as “non-machinable” and extra postage was required. I think that I’ve mentioned this in a previous post. The verdict was that the cards were too stiff to go through the sorting machines, so they had to be hand canceled – which costs more. In September I created 2 card designs and took them both to the Post Office to check to see if either would require extra postage. And, sadly, one of the designs was also too stiff. I purchased the postage for those cards so that the church wouldn’t have to spend extra, so all was good. However, I think that this experience has kind of paralyzed me. Now there’s another factor that I need to consider with a card design – will extra layers make the card too rigid? I have to wrap my brain around this, but I’m confident that this particular card is not going to be a problem. I like using thick white cardstock as a card base and then layering other colors on the front. This is especially useful for the card ministry because they like having white on the inside of the card to write the message. Having a colored paper inside is challenging for them to see when writing, unless the paper is really light in color. For this card I used some card bases that I purchased at a local craft store and they are lighter weight, so no worry about rigidity. I still need to figure out how I’m going to adjust my approach to making cards, I do know that adding patterned paper directly on a thick white card base is fine (that’s what worked last month). I’ll also have to experiment with the two-tone cardstock because that is lighter weight. So, there are ways to compensate. Thankfully, I did enjoy making this card, and it really felt good to finish making them yesterday. So hopefully I’m on the way to getting past my mental roadblock.

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