I just finished a long (but rewarding) process of card making! I jumped into the project without the foresight of how much effort truly goes into the process when you start from scratch….Researching, planning, drawing, painting, photo editing, layout designing, print ordering, folding, cutting, and packaging. Whew! It’s exhausting just listing off all the steps, let alone actually doing them.
Several months ago I was approached by a dear friend of mine to make greeting cards to sell in the shop she manages (Brooksdale Farm and Gift Shop). This shop is a part of an international Christian organization called A Rocha. As their website states, it is an “organization which, inspired by God’s love, engages in scientific research, environmental education, community-based conservation projects and sustainable agriculture.” How could I pass up this opportunity which combined so many of my interests into one?
So the ball started rolling when my friend gave me a personal tour of Brooksdale Environmental Centre (a flagship project of A Rocha) in Surrey B.C. The property is a unusual but delightful mix of wildlife habitat, agricultural land, and architectural history. If you’re in the area, I highly recommend checking the place out — you can book a tour or even stay overnight!
After taking photographs and sketching out ideas for cards, we settled on seven unique designs all featuring different structures on the Brooksdale property.
The next step involved drawing images in pen and then painting them. To achieve a watercolour effect, I just thinned out my usual acrylic paints with some regular old tap water.
Next I photographed the finished paintings to have digital copies with which to work. Typically I’d scan the images; however, I tried that and ended up with inaccurate and washed-out colour readings. So even though it was a lot more work to photograph each image and edit it in photoshop, I was very pleased with the end result.
I then created the layout for each greeting card, including a brief description on the reverse about the history of each building provided by my friend and her co-workers.
Once the prints were ordered online and I picked them up from the store, my robot brain kicked into overdrive. I hand-cut, scored, and folded all the cards myself, and finally packaged them with their envelopes. And just like that I have 280 greeting cards completed and already selling at the gift shop!
All in all it was a very involved project (to say the least)! But it was extremely rewarding — both in the fact that it was a new challenge to tackle and that the profit from the cards goes directly back into A Rocha. I know I must have enjoyed the labour-intensive project because I already have plans in the works to create greeting cards featuring my own paintings…stayed tuned for round two!
ROSALIE LUYMES STUDIO 
Thank you so much, Rosalie, for generously donating your time and talents in this way. We at A Rocha are delighted and grateful. The cards are fantastic.