Since I moved a lot as a kid, I hate losing people. I send out about 75 holiday cards every year, trying to keep track of my old friends. One year I wanted to make tapestry cards, but who has time to weave 75 tapestries?
Back then, at the dawn of civilization, color copies cost $1.75 each, so I didn’t want to weave one tapestry and make multiple prints of it.
So, I wove a strip of 8 small tapestries, each about 3 inches square, cut the strip in two, then laid them on a color copier and had 10 copies made. That came out to 22 cents per image.
I glued the tapestry images onto cards that I designed and had printed on cardstock, which added about 3 cents more to the cost. (Have you noticed yet that I’m somewhat frugal?)
Since there were 8 different images, I figured I could use the same images over and over, as long as I kept track of who got which image every year.
This was years before I had a digital camera, or a scanner, or knew how to 
use Photoshop.
Even with my rudimentary Photoshop skills, it would be pretty easy now to design cards using these images, and then have them printed on cardstock, instead of having to do all that cutting and pasting.
It was a lot of fun figuring out how to weave holiday images. Some came out better than others.
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I’m particularly proud of these very simple stars, which were woven sideways with pick and pick rays of light at right angles to the striped ones. It's a uniquely tapestry solution.
Have a happy holiday season, and a new year filled with tapestry adventures.
6 comments:
I love the cards, My Mother used to make up to 150 cards with block printing or silk screening, I tried, but you may be inspiring me to learn photoshop and continue her tradition of making her own cards. Everyone treasured her cards
Thanks, Sue. My very first cards were woodcut prints. Then for years I made a collage of black and white photos of my kids, along with their drawings, and photocopied it, then hand tinted it with colored pencils. Whew, that was a big job. Finally the kids grew up and refused to act cute for photos, so I had to resort to other inspiration.
What a wonderful idea!!! Each of the tapestries is so lovely. You must have special friends! I imagine I can do the same thing with knitted holiday themed squares.....................you are an inspiration.
I like the stars, too. And the tree, and the... well, all of them. I'm so frugal this year (with time and money), that I haven't done cards at all! I have done handmade cards for years, but just haven't gotten it done this year. I'll probably hear about it from a few people, too. Yours are terrific.
Funny how time compresses sometimes. I love your card idea. Maybe I'll try tapestry cards in the future. But once a long time ago, when I did have more time, I did paper woven cards as Christmas cards, using cards I'd received in years past (yes, I'm a packrat). I put them in the die-cut circular cards that are for needlepoint, I think. Lots of fun!
Tommye
wow, they are gorgeous and fun!
great idea. Congratulations on this new year 2009! may all your projects be great as all the past ones! Beautiful pictures. We had a dark room at home when I was a kid and my dad showed my the wonders of the b/w. Beautiful and nostalgic winter trees.
Regards,
Ixchel
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