Finding Their Creative Wings...

by Toni
(Oregon)

I have been a long time paper artist and of course cards are a large part of my love.

I have been making my own cards since I was a young child with nothing more to work with than discarded catalogs, scissors & glue.

I was quite content at the time.

All during my years of being a teen and then into adulthood I tried to find unusual embellishments for my cards.

Imagine my delight when the craft world exploded with Scarpbooking!

Now I have all kinds of embellishments, but long ago....

At the coast with my husband and two daughter's, on a very rainy and windy day we were trying to find things to keep our girl's content.

At the time they were 8 & 6 and endeared to working with paper arts themselves.

My husband, who says he does not have a creative bone in his body, suggested that the girls make cards to send to their grandparents.

Okay, good idea.. but we did not bring any supplies.

We collected the stationary and envelopes from the hotel we were at, made paste from water & flour (actually pancake mix).

The girls and their dad scoured the beach, and it's paths for anything that said "Beach"

Driftwood, wildflowers, shells, rocks and other things were brought back up in the girl's buckets, and they set about to create their cards from The Oregon Coast.

It may be one of the most gratifying times I have ever spent with my family with art involved.

The girl's grandparents adored their "Beach Made Cards" and the cards held up far longer, over the years, than I would have ever imagined possible with the flour glue we used.


Christina says...

What a lovely story Toni and one to treasure forever.

I remember wallpapering a room in my house a long time ago and running out of wallpaper paste....my mum made me up a big batch of flour and water and we finished off the room.

It stuck to the walls for years and I eventually had one heck of a job to get it off!!