Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Polly & Ms T

Hello again! No I haven't gone away and deserted you in favour of sunnier climes again; although the prospect is tempting, I have been out in my 'studio' practising new techniques and playing with my new bits and pieces. The results so far are pretty favourable, ie I am impressed - with myself, that is!

Having already had a play for myself last week; an average of four cards an evening, I then received an SOS text from a new friend of mine. Ms T is the Mom of one of my dear Scouts and over the course of the year we have struck up quite a friendship. Obviously she is comfortable enough with this to ask for help; which is quite flattering.

Anyway, Ms T is getting married in a few months time and sensibly she and her intended had been shopping. She has decided to make her own wedding invitations; bought all the notions required and has recently been having nightmares about everything to do with the wedding preparations. Having already invited me to assist in the assembly of the said invites; over a couple of glasses (hic) of wine; she now realises that all is not right and wanted a 'professional eye' to take a look before the gathering on Saturday night.

So, being modest Polly gathered up her collection of hand-made greeting cards and wedding stationary and packed them into the junky blue brief case that came free with BJK's seed order a couple of years ago. The point is that it is just the right size for the albums, Estee Lauder box and various other accoutrement's and being of the less expensive variety contains no fancy internal dividers making it ideal for Polly's Card Bag; while allowing me to lug them around in style.

We met at the Tullamore Town Park; which is lovely. It's a far cry from the old park which was dimly lit and overhung with out of control tree life. Nowadays we are lucky enough to have a modern landscaped facility with walkways, playgrounds, park benches for us oldies, a bowling green, skate park, trees and a water feature with dancing fountains.

The SUN, yes the Sun was shining and it was time for the annual Phoenix Festival; including a Skate-off for the kids (some of whom were well into their twenties!). Ms T and myself wandered into the adjoining graveyard and found ourselves a nice flat tomb to sit on for the afternoon chatting and admiring each others card making prowess. Okay; I could show mine off and give Ms T some ideas of how to fix her problems...

Ultimately; having not known quite what to say upon seeing her quickly knocked up sample (using UHU), we decided that she'd been badly advised and that it would be a simple matter of swapping the shop bought embellishments for a selection of simple hand made ones. All that remained for us to agree upon was which colour; it had to be relatively neutral, so as not to impose itself too much upon the chosen format.

From mass produced cardboard hearts in white and gold, and a coordinating daisy in the same colour scheme we went to hand punched velum daisies with a hand painted centre embellished with some glitter glue. This is a very simple combination which I used time and again with great effect; using a medium and a small paper punch to create the flowers and some 3D glue pads to provide depth. The difference in the 'finished' item was incredible; having been at odds with itself everything now pulls together nicely.

Meanwhile, while all this was being decided upon Ms T and I got to work at dismantling several of my sample cards; cannibalising them to provide bits n bobs for her invites! Unfortunately the colour scheme didn't always match, but you can't have everything can you? Purple on gold? Yuck! I have since bought some more neutral vellum to turn into the centre pieces of Ms T's wedding invitations...

I have to say that Ms T and I attracted quite a lot of unwanted attention. From the group of Emo's/Rocker's/Goth's congregated in another darker corner of the cemetery we just picked up on the vibes; they wanted us to go away. Quite a few of the taller teenage boy's passing us on the adjacent pathway wanted us to do their fortune cards for them, but by far the worst was when we left the graveyard. It's a shame really because I could have made a fortune if I'd remembered to bring my link to the future, the picnic table and some giant golden earrings; still maybe it's for the best, the kids would have disowned me!

By that time Mr T-to-be had joined us and was sporting a twelve pack upon his right shoulder. The fact that it was only blackcurrant squash escaped the notice of some; obviously we'd been up to no good. After all I had the brief case stuffed full of cash and this bunch of middle aged hippies ought to know better! LOL - if only they knew.

More tomorrow; somewhere in between bag packing for 1st Tullamore Scout Troupe at Dunne's Stores; I can hardly wait...

Polly Peirce
Purveyor of Fine Hand Made Irish Greeting Cards & Wedding Stationary

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Polly Pierce said...

Wow! Thanks Jean. This is my first award and I am truly honoured.