Yule Cards WIP

First attempt at ornare:

Using a fucking thumbtack (for the lettering) is a real pain. Literally. I'm interested enough in this technique to look for more appropriate piercing/perforation tools—maybe get like a pergamano needle or two.

The perforations on for the snowflake were made by a very fine-nosed screwdriver my dad found me, but I'll definitely want to be able to make perforations of varying diameters. NO MORE THUMBTACKS ugh.

Because I'd printed the stencil inside the card, I'm gonna like spraypaint the inside as soon as I buy a better can of spraypaint. (I bought a can of Chase glitter spray on Friday and it is a fucking POS. I tested it on two of my cocktail straw himmelis and all I ended up with were two fucking glitter bombs. I'mma go get me a can of Krylon Glitter Blast soon. You get what you pay for, I guess.)

Alternatively, I guess I might washi-tape the inside up? I still have two rolls of pretty nice silver-patterned washi tape.

This card's meant to have a star himmeli mounted on the card front, but since Chase's lousy glitter spray is fucking up my star ...

Project: Paper-cut card

So someone I know launched her own studio, which is an amazing feat, and I decided a card is much faster to make than—say, an A3 cutting—because I only had maybe a week or so to work on it. (Even as a full-time bum, one week isn't a lot of time to go from conceptualizing to designing—and endless redrafts, given how quickly I change my mind about things—to buying materials, printing, and cutting (and re-cutting in the event of design or cutting mistakes), to presentation.)

This was the final product I gave:

The envelope was a simple one—Paul Jackson's angled envelope—made with tracing paper. The card design itself, lord that must've been the third of the three completely different designs I was working on.

I started out with a grid of letters ("congratulations") on a seamless pattern (which I took forever to decide on) but halfway through that, I started thinking of a variation of Cirque des Rêves (yes, based on The Night Circus) which had a circular motif and a typeface with beautiful swashes (Giza Pro).

Finally, because it was all getting overwhelming and (needlessly) complicated, I settled on this much simpler design which also meant an easier cutting time.

What I used:

• Typefaces:
  • Hello Script ("Hazel" and "I wish you every success")
  • Moon ("congratulations")
  • Reislust (the last two lines from Robert Crawford's 'Advice' which, fuck me, yes I didn't catch that I'd attributed it to Richard rather than Robert Crawford until I finished cutting and it's too late to reprint and re-cut. Major UGH.)
• Paper: Campap watercolor paper, 300 gsm, 229x305 mm
• Triangle pattern: I took a single triangle from a hand-drawn seamless pattern set then manually pasted it around (using Transform Each to rotate/copy). I thought of using the Symbol Sprayer tool but this was such a small canvas it was actually much faster to manually create the pattern than to spray, then shift/scrunch/size, etc.
• Colorful watercolor background from Freepik.com
• Silhouette: DIY from a photo of Hazel I found in her FB album

Making this card (as well as having 10 more sheets of watercolor paper left in my block) makes me want to do more cutting! So far, I've decided to do another card—this time, one with a quote in a simple pop-up—and two seamless geometric patterns. Will get those printed out at the only print shop I'd go to since I have the time to travel there—he works with a lot of students (from the nearby art school) so he's really patient and comes at really low rates and great advice (plus free throw-ins like cutting and scoring haha)!

Multiply (In A Minor Key)

My guess: The almost-full moon, my period, and physically, emotionally, and psychically stressed and exhausted. So it's a 'Multiply' kinda day — that one with a soundtrack composed of 'Addict', 'Hurt', 'Multiply (In A Minor Key)' and X-Japan ballads.

Of course I did what I always do — shut down, went offline, and did a bit of therapeutic cutting.

It's the simple roll box which I got from Paul Jackson's Folding Techniques for Designers: From Sheet to Form to which I added random patterns I cut into the long-side panels. It looks okay, but I think the patterns should be planned next time so the two sides that each has two layers would look nicer.

I think for Hazel's gift I might do a shadow box/frame with different folds on which patterns are cut. White on white on white maybe.

As I was folding and unfolding, cutting, and refolding, I watched (casually, meaning with an ear open but without really watching the screen) Bobby Jasoos. I do like this movie but it's mainly because of Vidya; Ali Faizal did fuck-all and didn't look very compatible to Vidya. The story was interesting enough but the denouement was a bit of a letdown.

I also finished Bol Bachchan — oh lord why had I even started on this in the first place?! It's Rohit Shetty, ffs. Argh, why don't I ever learn???

It's ridiculous to feel so bloody fragile and sensitive that every little thing seems to matter and bruise the soul so much.

So tired, so tired, so tired, so tired ...

Read(s) of the Month: September

The more I feel stressed out, the more I read, apparently. Which I guess makes sense because whenever I feel overwhelmed in any way, I look for exits. Books make for great escapes.

Anyway, I'm done with Principles of Design 1 and Digital Design 1. The final project for Digital Design 1 was food boxes/carriers for a food joint. We had to come up with a concept for the food joint and design and make the damn box/carrier. The flip food box had issues, so I made another box (actually I made at least four or five — including the prototype — and only submitted three).

On a term break this Wednesday and next Monday ... thank Goddess for the breather!

Reads of the month:

• Into Darkness by Jonathan Lewis
• Room by Emma Donoghue (finally!) — OMFG I love this book so much I think I'll buy a copy!

I also borrowed I, Lucifer again but prolly won't get around to reading it. I also think I prolly won't finish The Anthologist — when I put it down (for reasons unrelated to the book), I don't feel the need to pick it up ASAP. Also, I'm reading an old Kathy Reichs that I'd missed (so hard to read in chronological order when you have to depend on a library) which is hard to put down, so.

[...]

So the assignment (100% weightage!) for one of my classes is:

To design a packaging for restaurant/café for customers to take away their food. This packaging should feature the unique qualities of the restaurant of their specialty dishes or ingredients.

I found this unique and awesome food packaging and so have (very foolishly) decided to base my assignment around that (because it looks awesome fun to make and I was itching to make my own). Following the video, I actually managed to make it cuz it's really simple!

Other than this little spot of joy, I feel like everything else is a chaotic, crushing mass — work, classes, my eating, my physical condition ... Fuck.

Read(s) of the month (can't remember when I finished reading these, whether it's at the beginning of this month or the end of the last):

• Cat Out of Hell: <3
• The Last Tomorrow: Is he trying to ape Ellroy? Cuz it's a fail fail fail. If not, then I think it's an overly complicated tale with very few sympathetic characters (if there were even any at all). Will not read Jahn again.
• Lost Cat: I cried. Because [spoiler] ... Tibby and Fibby both died =...((