Father's Day, the Olympics and Holiday Mood!

Our weather has turned very hot indeed!

As a result my attic studio is out of bounds as the heat seems to collect up there, even with the windows open. So my collage box has come downstairs for now and I made this one at my kitchen table with the papers spread out around the worktops – just like when I made my first ever collage!

Fun First Father's Day Card or Birthday Card by helikettle
Create one-of-a-kind

I’ve been wanting to make some more text-based card designs using cut-out painted paper letters for a while. And I’ve finally got around to it!

I find it quite difficult to get in the right frame of mind for designing Father’s Day cards, probably because they weren’t around when my parents were alive. To me it’s one of those ‘new holidays’ that I suspect were dreamed up by the greeting card manufacturers.

But the CardGnomes are talking about doing a special facebook promotion for Father’s Day so I thought I’d better try to come up with something new for the occasion. In fact, considering how hard I find getting into the spirit of it, I’ve actually created quite a selection of cards for various ages and different tastes over the past couple of years:

Father's Day Greeting Cards

I really didn’t feel much like venturing out into the midday sun to see the Olympic Torch come through Abergavenny on Friday.

But once I was in the town centre, the enthusiasm of the crowds lining the route was infectious and I was glad I went – and managed to get a few photos, in spite of yellow-jacketed stewards standing in the way!

The Met Police were in charge of security, but I thought our Welsh ‘heddlu’ looked pretty impressive - if not quite 'fearsome'! - and their slow procession through the crowded streets raised hearty cheers! They weren't driving fast enough to whip up a breeze so they must have been sweltering in their leather trousers!

When the torchbearer finally arrived, I was a bit disappointed to discover that she wasn’t local to Abergavenny. But I later heard that she was a very worthy participant, from Newport, I believe, a 70 year old, recently retired Yoga teacher.

Next week we have two Bank Holidays! One, on Monday, is the usual late May Bank Holiday and the other, on Tuesday, is for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee! And then, on the Wednesday, my son will be coming down from York for my birthday at the end of the week - and to set up my new A3 scanner!

In view of all this and the fact that I feel I should make the most of truly summery weather on the rare occasions that we get it, I won’t be posting on my blog next week.

But, all being well, I’ll be back the following week!

Father's Day Greeting Cards...

...on 

Mugs, Mousepads & More 

The tedious business of uploading, tagging, describing, categorising.....

I've been really busy putting age numbers on some of my birthday cards this week because I noticed that quite a few of my sales had been that type of card. It's boring work, especially all the uploading and writing descriptions and tags - though I seem to have got a bit quicker with the 'categorising' as time has gone on - and I've just had the first batch approved by GCU. I think the reviewers must have seen 100 new cards suddenly appearing and decided they'd better get stuck in!

With all that going on, it doesn't feel as if I've done much painting this week but in fact I've made four new designs, all 'creatures' of one sort or another, the last for a while I think as I seem to run out of steam with one 'range' of cards quite quickly - low boredom threshold perhaps? Just as well I have several 'styles' to fall back on!

First up my mouse and elephant again, in a birthday card or birthday button role this time -

'Little Mouse' 3rd Birthday button by helikettle
See other Button Buttons

 

'Jumbo' 4th Birthday Card by helikettle
Browse Birthday Cards

.
- followed by a kangaroo for Mother's Day in the same style -

Kangaroos Mother's Day Card by helikettle
Browse other Mother's day Cards

- also available on a T-shirt.

And today I've tried a collage again (and hoping for the best as far as my back is concerned!) for Father's Day - 

Starfish Father's Day Card by helikettle
View more greeting cards at zazzle

I was surprised how well it showed up on a dark T-shirt too - 

Starfish T-shirt by helikettle
See other Starfish T-Shirts

I still have about 80 of my new 'age' birthday cards to put on Zazzle but my enthusiasm has waned a bit because they seem to do so much better on GCU. They appear immediately in my 'store' though so if I do a few every day, they'll probably all be available on Zazzle at about the same time as on GCU!