For several years, I would send out handmade cards and unique Xmas newsletters for the holidays. The practice began with simple, whimsical cards, but over time they evolved into complex writing exercises done for the pure joy of it.
These are included in my portfolio as an example of how I combine storytelling and art.
Seasonings Greetings
The first year, I created a simple woodblock print of two ornaments hanging on a tree. The ornaments represented salt and pepper shakers, and the words inside the card read,
“Seasonings Greetings”
Peas On Earth
This was followed by a hand-colored black and white photo of two male friends who held a globe, a bag of frozen peas, and a wheel of gouda cheese. The sentiment on the card reads,
“Peas on Earth, Gouda Wheel, Two Men.”
O Chinese Elm
A few years later, when my daughter was 5, I was writing a humorous home improvement blog, sharing our adventures living through multiple renovation projects. The only purpose of the blog was to stay in touch with close family and friends through storytelling, and it was password-protected, but I had a regular weekly readership of about 50 family and friends.
While I worked on the house, planning what to write in that week’s post, I spontaneously began humming Christmas tunes. Lo and behold, the idea for that year’s Xmas newsletter was born.
This project features familiar Xmas songs with new lyrics that tell amusing stories of our home improvement projects (and disasters): cutting down a tree, car trouble, too many spiders, and life with a 5-year-old. No extra charge for the cheesy clip art.
The newsletter was (snail) mailed out to my blog audience, who loved it. Two friends even sang the whole thing in two-part harmony at a community Xmas party.
The Game
Each October, I sit down and write a bulleted list of that year’s events to see what I was working with for that year’s “traditional” family update. From there, I usually find inspiration for the theme of the card. After one particularly difficult year, however, I realized the balance of good things and stressful things were skewed toward the bad stuff.
Wow. How depressing.
Wanting to share that year’s update with a more positive tone, I designed a board game to tell our story. Each square described an event, and several had instructions to move backward, lose a turn, or roll again.
My thought process was that while I wanted to include the big bullet points in the story, I didn’t want to allow them to overshadow the rest of the story. By organizing each point in its own board game square, I could visually isolate the negative incidents and draw attention to the positive events.
Xmas Haiku
One year in response to a dare, I wrote a series of haikus for our annual Xmas newsletter. Even the contact info at the bottom of the letter is a haiku.
Skills used:
- Creativity & Imagination
- Storytelling
- Copywriting
- Graphic Art
- Graphic Design
- Photography
- Humorous writing
Pam Noble 