I Had Arrived part 4

May invited us around her table,  to see how the card was made.

“You are now going to begin to design your first greeting card. First tip, work on your card ½ a cm from the edge. It will draw the eye into the design or image you want the recipient to see.” I could see what she meant: I was looking towards the image and not the card itself.

May was talking all the time as she went through the different stages in making the greeting card.

“Now it is your turn to make your first greeting card,” she concluded.

I returned to my work space anxious but excited to start. May had given plenty of instructions but I was happy that I would be able to follow them. I realised that my hands were no longer shaking and that I was looking forward to seeing what I could actually make.

“Firstly measure your card using the cutting mat. Secondly find the centre of the front of the card.  In time you will find that you won’t need to measure.”

“Everyone ready? Now measure ½ from each edge and draw two small lines along each side. Remember this is to  draw the eye into the card.”

Again May stopped to allow us all to complete the step then gave us our next instructions…

“Does everyone have 4 quadrants? Great. Now for the fun part”, 

I had been given four square pieces of paper which matched the size of the quadrants. Two of the squares were navy, one was azure and the other, sky blue. I placed the 2 navy squares in the top quadrants and the other two in the bottom quadrants.

“Place your Teddy Bear image on the squares and see if you are happy. Then start to glue your paper into place.”

The room became very quiet as all the ladies concentrated on placement and pasting. I found that I preferred to stand. I was able to see better and judge where I wanted to place the background and image. I took the first square, glued it and placed it in the top right quadrant. Soon all quadrants were blue then taking it extremely slowly I  placed the Teddy Bear image directly above the card. Then my hand slipped and Teddy ended up off centre and to the right. 

I wanted to scream with frustration. I was so mad with myself. “Oh you lugadó ceart” I said to myself as I dropped to my chair. I just couldn’t do anything right. I was a lugadó,  a klutz and a few other things besides. I wanted to scream in frustration.

May happened to be beside me at that very precise moment and before my frump ended up taking over she interrupted me.

Can I?” she asked , taking up my card. “Ladies, can I have your attention? This Teddy is not in the place where it was intended. There is a saying in card making: we do not make mistakes, only happy accidents. What has been created here is an off centre image. Now by putting a greeting in the bottom left the card will become balanced again”.

I began to preen as I looked at my finished card about 20 minutes later. I had made my very first greeting card. It was unique and I loved it. I loved the process. It had relaxing, especially after learning about ‘happy accidents'. I did a little happy dance step or two.

Soon all the ladies were displaying their greeting cards at their workstation. The trolley lady had made a beautiful precise card which was stunnning.

May gathered us around her table to demonstrate the layering card technique. This card looked easier than the first card. I started with a new goody bag. Listening to May and seeing how she completed the card seemed difficult.

However, as I stood and sorted through the pieces of card I knew exactly how I was going to do it. I didn’t need to think. I was in a world of my own totally oblivious to the voices, and noises around me. I chose a brown square piece of card and glued it with a glue stick to the greeting card. There was another teddy Bear image;  a bear with curly brown fur but there was a hint of pink as well.. So choosing a dark pink piece of card I secured the Teddy bear image to it. the teddy bear image popped out. I hadn’t realised how well brown and pink go together. . Looking more closely at the image I saw that there were green leaves in the background so I could also have used green as the background.

“Oh my word “ I thought to myself. “This is just magical. A few scraps of paper and card and I have the front of a greeting card. Or should I say a topping for my card? I am even learning a new language.”

I looked at the two cards I had made and realised that I wanted to learn more. I wanted to enter into that space again where the rest of the world did not exist.

May gave us one more goody bag. This time it had a garden shed as the main image with 8 squares of paper. There were two solid dark green coloured paper, one teal green and another  which was ombrè. The other four pieces of paper were in blue. The garden shed was predominately cream with a hint of blue at the edge.

I escaped once more into the world of card- making oblivious to what was going on around me.

to be continued