Thursday, January 7, 2010

How Many Ways with a Compass?

Here is a little background for you. I have an undergraduate degree in Geography. I ended up getting an MEd and became a teacher who really loved adding lots of geography to my curriculum. One year I even wrote the county's second grade curriculum for geography. Maybe I seem extreme, but I think it is important to know all about where you are and how the world around you influences you.

Anyhow, one of the things that I had to teach them was the basics of map-making. It was always a fun lesson to see how kids saw their world. In teaching about maps, I stressed the major elements to basic map-making. One of the things you always find on a good map is a compass rose. Without it, the map does the reader no good.

So, when this new compass rose showed up in the Sea of Love release I was so excited. I could not wait to make cards with it. However, the creative side of me seemed to have taken a break when I was trying to make card samples and I just couldn't come up with anything good. Now that the stress and craziness of the holidays are behind me (yesterday was Three Kings Day and the twelfth day of Christmas), I can share a series of cards that I made with the compass and the sentiment "I'd be lost without you." Today I will share two cards and I'll have the other two for you tomorrow.




This was the first card I made. I was trying to stick to the red, white and blue color scheme that we used for the amuse-bouche. I decided that I wasn't all that thrilled with it, except for the heart punch (a leftover from my daughter's punching bonanza). Back to the drawing board.



Then I went to SplitcoastStampers to look for inspiration. I find that the challenge sections give me a push in directions that I would not normally go. I found a sketch challenge (SC256) that looked perfect for an idea I had - pairing the pirates and compass together. The wavy line in the middle gave it a greater nautical feel. I wanted, again, to stick to the red, white a blue color scheme, so I only highlighted portions of the people with my colored pencils. I like this one a bit better than the first, so I tried some other ideas. I'll share those tomorrow, so please stop by if you can.


card #1: white notecard, red gingham paper, navy paper, compass, sentiment by A Muse, punch, Copic markers.

card #2: navy notecard, natural paper, sky blue paper, compass, sentiment, pirate, tiny heart, pirate girl by A Muse, colored pencils, circle punches.

2 comments:

Beth Thomas said...

These are wonderful, Elana! Love the heart in the center of the compass and the pirate theme is just too clever. You are such an inspiration to me!

Unknown said...

these designs are fabulous!!! i love the pirate one!