FOLK ART GREETINGS CARDS by Eva & Nicole Tummel
Kangaroo Press (Simon & Schuster Australia) 2000 (distributed UK by Search
Press)
ISBN 0731807847 - Paperback
Crafts / Folk Art Painting / Greetings Cards
Nonfiction - How To

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde, MyShelf.com
Buy a Copy N/A

Instead of buying cards this year, why not make some of your own? There is a truly awesome amount of craft materials available these days but if you have this book you don't need any of them - just watercolor or acrylic paints, fine brushes and some card. It doesn't matter either if you "can't draw a pint" as my grandmother used to say as this book has cannot draw or paint, for you can trace, photocopy or scan (just for your own use I hasten to add) the designs or you can copy them or use them as inspiration if you are feeling more advanced. This book has great international appeal too, as although there are a few very Aussie pictures (I particularly liked the one of Santa riding along on a gaily-painted boomerang) a lot of the folk figures are very American, and the floral, wildlife and other motifs have a vaguely Germanic (or even English) feel. Each picture comes with accompanying notes suggesting colors (and there is a colored photo of the actual card, tag or place card) and hints as to what to paint first, which I found particularly helpful. At the back there are lots of shapes to trace for tags, and suggestions of how to make them using such ordinary materials as thick card, corrugated card and glitter.

If you are an environmentally-conscious person (and if not, why not?) you will have a ball using up all sorts of odds and ends - and who doesn't have a set of paints left over from childhood (your own or somebody else's) or lying neglected in a dark cupboard?