Good Luck Card

 It's fun to make cards and exciting to make a sale but the seed of taking up card making as a hobby began in something more meaningful than making money. It began with making a card for someone who touched your life. Making a card for family, a friend or colleague really is making something to show the  other person how much you care.
The card I made last weekend was to mark a sad occasion for me and my colleagues. A few days previously after much uncertainty we received the news that our manager has decided to leave his job.
I won't go into details but let me just say that we were all shocked and saddened.  With a week to go before the end of term there was not much time to get used to the idea and all term time staff were about to leave for the summer break. We moved quickly to mark the occasion starting a collection for a gift. Naturally I offered to make the card.
The sketch for the card attempts to reflect the love for the outdoors. Walking is one of our colleagues favourite activities so I imagined that freed from the daily grind he would be able to indulge in that activity as much as he liked. I considered doing a hand drawn motif coloured with watercolours. Then my daughter saw my sketch and suggested using materials such as felt and different shades of paper for the hills. So I must give some credit to her for the final design.
The sun in the sky was made using some gold wrapping paper. I'm known for requesting the wrappings of gifts including ribbon before they are thrown in the bin. This gold paper with the textured glitter pattern  made a lovely sun and continued the textured feel of the whole motif. In hindsight it would be better to use some felt to create the birds instead of black card. I can see me making different versions of this sketch already.
Everyone signed the card till it was full with fond words and good wishes for the future, poignant with not a little sadness. After being presented with his gift and card, my soon to be leaving manager sought me out to thank me for making the card. Knowing that it was made by someone he worked with made it extra special.
I'm really going to miss him.