"My Favorite Things" Watercolor Cards

INSPIRATION

Do you ever feel like there are certain parts of your house or objects in your house that you really like?  This spring I decided to sketch those parts of my house in order to calm my nerves.  Instead of thinking about the pandemic I focused on sketching the peaceful and the lovely...and it really helped.

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels

Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles

Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings

These are a few of my favorite things.

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes

Silver white winters that melt into springs

These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites, when the bee stings

When I'm feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don't feel so bad"

― Rodgers and Hammerstein

THE CARDS

Below you can see four of these scenes.  "The Magic Carpet" is a sketch of my bedroom.  Everyday Bubo can be found napping on the bed and Otus is usually looking at something out the window.  I also love the way the wooden carving fits perfectly into the curve of the wall.  And I totally lucked out and got the carpet from Everything But the House a few years ago.  I would be remiss not to mention how much I like the bulbous, bumpy legs of my nightstand which I found in an antique store in Geneva, New York.

The focus of the next card was "The African Violet" which can be found in the kitchen.  The African Violet was from my Dad's retirement ceremony.  In addition there is an air plant my friend Jyoti gave me and a young purple hyacinth bean plant that I grew from seed.  I thought it was adorable the way it wrapped itself around the shade pull.  If you look closely you can see a mottled purse crab and a sea urchin shell I collected in Charleston.  You can also see the bottom of the roman shades which is made of fabric with a beautiful orange and green pattern that I love and that makes me happy every time I walk into the kitchen.

"The Rocking Chair" can be found in the computer room.  If Bubo is not asleep on the bed, he can often be found curled up on the rocking chair.  And Otus seems to prefer his bed on the radiator.  The scene would not be complete if I didn't include my Japanese Midori calendar.  I love the scene of the Japanese warrior Kintaro riding a koi fish.  

And finally, "The Begonia" lives in the dining room next to the hanging pothos plant.  I have always loved the way the red backside of the begonia leaves mimics the color and shape of the flowers in the roman shades.

In case you couldn't see Kintaro on his fish.

This month I was looking back at the sketches and decided I would experiment with making notecards.  I thought I would give them away as Christmas gifts and/or sell them on my website.

I printed the cards at Moo.com and was pleased with the quality of the paper.  One of my goals is to experiment with different printers so if I re-order I am going to try a couple other places just to compare paper quality and textures.

THE PACKAGING

I decided to make matching Bubo tags to complete the packaging of the cards.  Below you can my paper cutter getting a good workout. 

 

And I am always excited when I can use my hole punch and miniature hammer.  It really does make a perfect hole.

I debated about how to package these.  I thought I had the perfect solution and dug out my fifteen-year-old see-through, plastic A4 card sleeves.  But for some reason the envelopes didn't fit.  It was a lucky misfortune because it then dawned on me to simply wrap them in paper and tie with twine.  I was so pleased with the simplicity of this solution and seeing them altogether like this made me immensely happy. (Funny Addendum:  I wrote this post yesterday and woke up at five o'clock this morning with the Sound of Music song in my head.  It dawned on me that Julie Andrews was singing about her favorite things as a strategy to get through difficult times and so I added the lyrics to the post and added "My Favorite Things" to the title.  Then I noticed that my post contained "brown paper packages tied up with string" and I had to laugh out loud.  The mind is an amazing thing!)

I keep finding that I am in love with the small details of life.  I like to look closely and to spend long amounts of time on the minutia.  Sometimes I try and force myself to pull out and look at things from afar, but then something will catch my eye and I am pulled back to the delightful detail.  I guess my love lies in the wee particulars.  

“The Lord likes small things best, especially those done with love.”

― Mother Teresa

If you would like to order the "Watercolor Cards" please visit my website, NessyPress.com and click "Notecards" at the top.