Purposeful or Functional Art: Personalized Greeting Cards- Part 1

We can make art to hang on your wall or display like a sculpture but some of us like to use our art making ability to create what I call "practical art" or functional art. Meaning art that can be used for something, purposeful...useable art.
Since I have been focusing on working in polymer clay these days, examples of purposeful polymer clay art could be.... candle holders, decorate a vase, provide a grip for tools like crochet hooks, polymer clay tools, decorate and glass, metal or wooden surface that holds balms, solid perfumes, do-dads and the like.

Using artwork to explain or teach something

And then two dimensionally speaking, to me, practical or purposeful art could be anything that is created to be used for something more than looking at in an Art gallery or on your walls. Examples I have used my 2D art have been for uses like illustrating story books to help tell stories or to teach someone how to do something like the tutorials I drew on the left. As well, in order to waterproof my husband's wheelchair tote bag, so I painted a landscape across the bottom, check it out below.

My husband's functional art by me!

And then there are the times when I have decorated useful items like picture frames and personalizing a jewelry box! The possibilities have been endless...drawings for advertisements to be used in print media like a newspaper, church bulletins, logo design, drawing images for posters and other advertising methods and all that fun stuff
Let's Get Personal
I think you get the idea. Today, I want to talk about making personalized, one of a kind greeting cards. Sure anyone can buy a card from Hallmark, but when you create your own special occasion or just because card to celebrate someone, there will never be another one like it anywhere! I do confess that my motive over the decades, besides having fun, has also been to save money. Have you seen the price of those store bought cards?!

There are a bazillion tutorials out here in web world about card making. There are many who like to work in scrapbooking mode, i.e.: stamping and inks,  paper cutouts, glitters, embossing powders, stickers and such. All fun but for me, I want to share the Old fashioned" way my personalized cards were made, using card stock, pencils and markers, along with glitter glue!

This is called part one because paper and markers were the original way many of us made cards and many still prefer that way.
So check out samples of a few of countless personalized and generic hand drawn cards that I once did with great joy!

A drawing I did in clay to make a texture plate!

These days, my personal cards can be done digitally, Check out the original article "Drawing With A Mouse" to see the first article on the subject.  For now, here are some past functional art pieces. Be inspired. We'll see you in part 2 next time!